


Awake In The Duties Of Your Calling

by i3ernadette



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Angel the Series
Genre: Gen, post-nfa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-09-16
Updated: 2010-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i3ernadette/pseuds/i3ernadette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willow arrives in LA just in time to help out. Then it's just a matter of getting the survivors back to the Scoobies...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Timely Intervention

Spike died in an alley when he was twenty-seven. At - however old he was - he expected to do it again, but this time with his something-Sire at his side and a God-King at his back. He never expected to live.

 

The sky tore open and the demons poured out, endless ranks stretching back through the flickering portal and across dimensions, and Angel wanted to kill the bleedin' dragon? Fair enough. Spike wanted to take down the giant chitinous squid-thing. With a hoot and a holler, Gunn claimed the fire-breathing spikey robot-looking horse. Even Illyria got into the spirit of things, targeting something vaguely rhinocerous-y and bigger than an elephant. Angel had just hefted his sword and made the first move when Willow's voice thundered in his head. "Dibs on the giant spider."

 

Willow had felt the first pang of impending apocalypse while at lunch with Dawn in Rome, Rio and Kennedy a sad-happy memory. Dawn felt it too, flinching so hard she knocked her coke into her puttanesca. The two of them rose, Sunnydale shadows in their eyes, and barely remembered to throw a handful of bills onto the table before rushing back to the flat and a phone.

 

Giles had tried to reassure Willow with platitudes and excuses, assuring her that she was feeling nothing more than the fallout of some internal power struggle in Wolfram & Hart. He forbade her to go when she reminded him that one of those powers was Angel, and she had teleported away without further discussion. Just a handclasp shared with Dawn and a flash of green light.

 

And then she was in the alley.

 

Willow glowed, white light so bright that some of the demons had refused to come forward. The rest squeezed past, however, forever spilling forth. A wrench and spasm of the world, and the portal was sealed. Then the backlash of that power was flowing out, sizzling across skin and slime and armor. It sank into Illyria, who threw her head back and laughed, a terrible swell and heave that only grew as her body did, expanding and transforming into the diety she had always been, underneath. A lash of power, and the rhinocerous wanna-be was a steaming puddle for the other demons to slip in.

 

Angel caught the dragon on its first pass, jumping twenty feet to cling to a tucked-in lower limb. He slung himself up and over, dragging past razor-scales to the huge sinewy neck. A moment riding the monster, coat billowing in slip-stream, before he dropped to his knees and used his sword like a bowie knife, severing the dragon's throat. Fiery blood splattered the horde below, so many that they were crushing each other in their lust to attack, and demons burned.

 

Hundreds of feet, and even though he'd probably survive, he'd be a sitting duck, but then Willow scooped him from the sky and settled him on shaky feet, just in time to gut a Fyarl. Angel laughed.

 

Willow dictated the battle, sending Angel to back up Spike or setting Illyria against anything particularly large, all the time shooting out lightning and ice in broad streams of white-gold power.

 

Illyria was fading back to her human avatar by the time the battle ended, hours and weeks and millenia later. Willow stumbled down the fire escape, kicking weakly at the catch on the last ladder until it descended with a pained rattle. She almost fell before she reached the bottom, but Illyria was there with a steadying hand to her back and a bright, hard grin on her face. Willow returned the expression with no less ferocity.

 

Together they found the vampires, first Angel and then Spike, and dragged them back into the shelter of the Hyperion's kitchen, the only room in the hotel that Willow judged safe enough from sunlight and structural damage. Angel was rigid even when unconscious, fingers gripped tight around the hilt of the sword he had claimed when his own had shattered. Willow pried his hand free as Illyria settled Spike, swearing dully, against a line of steel cabinets. Then she peeled back his leather jacket and hissed.

 

"Blood?" She asked, the first word she had spoken aloud since she had left Giles' office, half her life before.

 

Illyria nodded and went to one of the three massive refrigerators against the back wall. While she was busy retrieving packets and heating them in a microwave - strange - Willow continued her examination. Angel was hewn almost in two, a Johnny Mnemonic-style gash from shoulder to navel that had splintered his ribcage and must have done some serious damage to his guts because by the time it reached his stomach the hole was all the way through. Willow bit her lip and ran her hands down his arms and legs, relieved when she encountered no more wet patches or obviously broken limbs.

 

She left Angel, who she couldn't help, and went to Spike, for whom she could do less. He was almost lounging back, legs sprawled in his own special Spike-insouciance, but one of those legs was bent almost sideways at a very strange place and there was blood pooling underneath him. With a wary look at his hazy eyes, she crouched down and slipped his T-shirt up his cool skin. He, too, had been run through, but much less severly. If that could really be said about a gaping hole in one's side. But then, vampire healing and all of that. Willow took the first mug of blood from Illyria, who had reappeared at her side, and nodded towards Spike's leg.

 

"If I hold him down, can you take care of that? Best to do it before he wakes up much more."

 

Illyria said nothing, but knelt down beside Spike and laid one hand on his ankle and another on his knee. Willow straddled Spike's lap and reached down to wrap his arms around her waist. He clung weakly, but she guessed that his first reaction to sudden pain would be to lash out or to squeeze, and she could heal broken ribs -- Slayer-sex was very enlightening.

 

She craned her neck to look at Illyria, who took that as her signal and jerked. The sound was awful, a wet snap-crunch, but it was drowned out by Spike's sudden bellow. He convulsed, squeezing around her, but Illyria had her hands on both of his knees now and between that and Willow's weight draped against his body, he was pinned. He slipped into game-face and Willow felt a sudden surge of vampire-throat proximity fear that died away when he just smacked his head back against the counter and started swearing. He was quite creative, and from the look on her face, Illyria was taking pointers.

 

After almost a minute of steady, low swearing, Spike subsided. The eyes he trained on Willow were demon-gold, but clearer than they had been, and she remembered with a quick rush of embarassment that she was draped over his lap. She started to get up, but his arms, still draped around her waist where he had clung - though he had not broken anything, and Willow was certainly grateful - tightened.

 

"Red." His voice was strained, pain and exhaustion evident, but amused. "Nice of you to drop by. Didn't expect you to be takin' advantage of a poor bloke, though."

 

"What can I say? Saw you fighting and I couldn't resist." Willow smiled at him, both of them reeking of battle sweat and he, at least, soaked with blood and demon ichor, and he smiled back.

 

"Go down in history as the vamp who turned wonder-witch straight." The humor drained quickly, and his face was set and serious when he spoke again. "What're you doin' here, Red? Council send you? What happened?"

 

"I knew something was coming; Dawn and I were out at lunch and we both felt it. And boy, is she gonna be peeved when she finds out you're alive. Anyway. Giles said Angel could handle it, but..." Willow shrugged. "Never know when you'll need a good witch on your side. As for what happened..." She did rise, now, bracing her hands on the counter above Spike's head and levering herself off. With her gone, he could see Illyria, looking worn but whole, and Angel, spread out on the floor in a growing puddle of red-black blood.

 

"Fuck."

 

"Still alive. After a fashion."

 

"I know. No dust," he responded to her questioning grunt. "Gunn?"

 

Illyria shook her head.

 

"I tried." The stress of the last long hours got to Willow, abruptly sapping her of the adrenaline that had been keeping her steady and confident. "Tried so hard, really. But he was hurt already; could've saved him, maybe, I don't know. But I closed the portal, juiced up Illyria before I found him, and then when I asked, he just wanted to keep going. I gave him everything I could, but... He bled out. Killed everything he could see until he couldn't see anymore, and then..." Willow was crying, on her hands and knees on the floor, words squeaking out past sobs of strain and only now was the last of the white fading from her hair. Spike stretched an arm the distance between them and slipped his fingertips over the dips between her buckled knuckles.

 

"Good." She looked up at him through the narrow part in her hair, snot stringing between her nose and mouth and her eyes heavy with water and blood. "A man should choose his death; Charlie-boy wanted to go out fighting."

 

Willow choked her tears down and nodded, brusque awareness returning in the face of too much emotion. She retrieved the mug of blood, lukewarm now, from the countertop and handed it to Spike. He made a face, but gulped it down. By the time he was finished, Illyria was pressing another, hotter mug into his hands. When that, too, was gone, he spoke again.

 

"What about the pouf?" Already some color - and Willow hadn't realized until now just how much paler Spike looked when he was truly bloodless - was returning to the grey skin and Spike was pushing himself up a little on his hands, straightening his back so the hunched skin didn't pull at his wound.

 

"Big hole."

 

"I asked what's wrong with him, pet." Spike smirked, and Willow twitched a lip in response.

 

"That, too. From what I can see, he's practically been drained of blood. And I can't figure out how to feed him."

 

"If he's still alive, Red, just pour it down his throat. Not like you can drown the bugger."

 

Willow's eyes widened. "Oh! Right." She looked around for Illyria, but the woman-thing had disappeared. She scurried after blood herself, refilling both empty mugs and setting them to heat. She didn't know why the power was on - maybe Angel had hoped he would surive, could come back? - but she was grateful. She knew how little Spike liked animal blood, and imagined that cold animal blood was even less appetizing.

 

The microwave pinged and she burned herself on the first handle she grabbed, so she drew down the sleeves of her sweater to cover her hands and grabbed both mugs. She handed one to Spike and took the other to Angel, kneeling beside him, deliberately not looking below the neck. He was so... yellowish. That was odd. Take away Spike's blood, and he turned grey. Drain Angel, and his skin was yellow-green. He was Irish, right, so shouldn't he just be pale? Willow shook herself and tested the blood with a finger, checking the temperature. She could barely feel it against her skin, so she wiped her finger against Angel's lips, trying to get his attention. He didn't stir. Slowly she began to drizzle the blood into his mouth, but thought better of it and hitched his head up onto her thigh. She again poured the blood into him, and was gratified to see his throat move in an approximation of a swallow.

 

Willow had just finished the last of the blood and Angel's swallows were getting stronger - though there was no other sign of life - when Illyria returned. The door to the alley banged open and she was backlit by a pinkish-gray sunrise, a tiny figure with a massive form draped over her arms like a silk-merchants samples. Gunn.

 

Spike swore again, tiny and sad. "Thanks, Blue."

 

Illyria nodded and laid Gunn out onto one of the wide countertops, folding his arms over the blood-stiffness of his shirt, and closed his eyes. Then she left again.

 

Willow put more blood in the microwave and, while it was heating, went over to look at Gunn. His skin was washed clean of life, nothing but brown wrapping over bone and deflated muscle. He didn't look... unhappy, though; almost calm, even in death. Willow pressed a kiss to his forehead and went to feed Angel.

 

Illyria came back within moments, this time with an armful of sheets in place of a corpse. She dropped them just beyond the point where Angel's blood had finally stopped its sticky spread and drew the top sheet from the pile. She ripped it into strips, moving almost too fast to see. When she dropped beside Spike and began to help him out of his duster, he looked a question at her.

 

"The first-aid kit is gone."

 

Together they got his duster off and he leaned forward, bracing against her shoulder as she hitched up his shirt and began wrapping linen strips around his ribcage, tucking and smoothing as gently as she could. Spike was bemused by the treatment, used to more abrupt handling. Finally she looped the last strip and threaded it through the others, securing it as well as she could, and patted his shirt down over the makeshift bandage. He just watched her as she moved next to Angel and began the process again. Willow stilled her with a hand on her shoulder, told her to wait. Illyria just nodded and took over the task of pouring blood into Angel while Willow opened the door and walked out into the sunlight. She didn't close the door behind her, and Spike was struck by the strangeness of the scene - her red hair caught the weak sun and tossed it back as something inadequate, she lifted her face to the light and spread her fingers and arms as wide as she could, stance open and waiting. Around her, those demons who did not disappear upon death or under the sun lay dead, but Willow was wholly alive. When she came back in, carefully shutting the door behind her, she was glowing. A little trickle of silvery-white in place of her earlier gold-white radiance, but enough to float Angel off of the floor while Illyria stripped him, too, of jacket and shirt and wound the bandages around him. When she settled him back to the floor, she knelt over him with a speculative glint in her eye.

 

"Think of something, Red?"

 

"We need to move, and soon. I would have been able to heal him, before, but now?" She sighed. "There's a chance I'd burn him alive."

 

Spike winced. "Probably not the best idea. Just keep feedin' him, then, and we'll carry him out if we have to."

 

"Will you be ready to move tonight?" Willow looked him over, unsure just how quickly he really healed.

 

Spike's grin was quick and dark. "Okay, so Illyria can carry the both of us."

 

A rustle of fabric drew their attention to Illyria, who had been ignoring them. She was sloughing her leather armor; Spike had seen it appear on her body and hadn't even known it could be removed. Completely unembarassed, she stepped free of the clinging leather. All of her skin was dappled with blue, and the darkening at her hairline was repeated on her thighs. Even her nipples were dark blue points on pale blue-pink skin. What was surprising, however, was the thick red gash on her left thigh. He hadn't even noticed it against the red of her clothing.

 

"Willow." Illyria tried out the name, testing it for the first time. Willow had introduced herself when she began speaking into Illyria's head, telling her that she was about to reshape her, but that had been all. "I could return what is left of your power to you, but I think we would both be better served if you allowed me to use it to heal." Spike noticed with interest that she spoke to Willow as almost an equal; restoring a God to her Godhood was apparently a deed worthy of respect.

 

Willow nodded. "Sure, if you can use it, go for it. Best to have us fighting fit, I'd guess." She turned away in an obvious show of providing privacy, rising to get still more blood for Angel. This time she brought a mug back for Spike, as well, and he drank happily as Illyria simply stood, eyes closed.

 

He was finishing his fourth - fifth? - mug when Illyria keened, her head snapping back and her body locking as the sound squeezed through her taut throat. The blue in her skin was spreading, darkening, until she shrieked, her skin a slick, solid blue-black carapace. Willow snapped around and Spike lurched in Illyria's direction, cursing when he still couldn't gain his feet. Willow caught her as she fell, silver lights flashing under again-mottled skin. The two landed together, Illyria hissing painful breaths into sore lungs, Willow running her hands over her hair, petting and soothing. Spike didn't know if Illyria had ever been petted.

 

"Too much, baby?" Willow murmured to Illyria as she had to Dawn, to Xander, even to Buffy. Spike smirked; Sunnydale kids really could get used to anything, even snotty God-Kings. Hell, he was just relieved that she looked okay.

 

Illyria lay still for a long moment, pushing lightly into the touch against her hair, before levering herself to a sitting position and then to her feet. She nodded sharply, and her armor again coalesced around her. Spike looked at the floor where it had lay, but nothing was there.

 

"I believe..." Illyria paused, worked her mouth for a moment before trying her voice again. "I believe that I retain too much of your power. The surplus destabilizes this form."

 

Willow sighed. "I was afraid of that. Hell." Spike jolted at the curse. Willow settled herself beside Spike against the cabinet and leaned into his shoulder for a moment. "If I get a nosebleed, you are not allowed to snack, okay? That's just... gross."

 

Spike looked at Willow, really looked, and sniffed the air. Under the stench of dead blood and the thick gouts of demon-scent that drifted in every time the door to the alley was opened, Willow smelled of exhaustion and fear. "You up to this, pet?"

 

Willow nodded. "Brave little toaster," she joked, but her voice cracked and Spike grimaced.

 

"Fuck. Illyria! Come here!" She came closer, her body-language screaming that she obeyed him merely out of whim. When she stood before him, he grunted and gestured at his lap. "Sit." He still hurt like - well, like he'd taken a horn to the gut, and politeness was not a major feature in his repetoire on a good day.

 

Illyria looked down her nose at him, something she could do even when he was standing, but complied, straddling his thighs as Willow had done earlier. The movement jolted his knee and torso, but he could tell he was healing because he didn't scream. Instead he tilted his head forward, pressing his nose to the crook of her throat. He sniffed, long and deep, then swept his tongue along the vein that ridged the toughened flesh. Illyria's pulse flickered and he chuckled, which also hurt but not so much, and lapped at her again.

 

"She's edible," he said to Willow, eyes steady.

 

Willow looked back at him, not a flicker of the disquiet he had expected showing on her face, and nodded. "If she can spare it, use it. I won't get knocked out, and you'll heal faster. But," she paused, looking at Illyria's disinterested profile. "It might change you."

 

"Vamp with a soul, here. I'm all about new experiences." Spike grinned, and both Willow and Illyria smiled.

 

"I don't know what her blood will do to you, but the magic will probably sting. That's why I couldn't just pump it into Angel - he's held together with shadow-magic, and all I've got on tap is sunlight."

 

"Great. Holy water for breakfast." Spike stared again at the flicker of pulse in the throat stretched out before him. He slipped into game-face and Illyria arched her neck in response, waiting, but Willow interrupted before he could slip his fangs into her.

 

"And Spike?" He growled an impatient response, and Illyria turned to peer through the blue strands that had fallen in front of her face. "Take enough for Angel."

 

Spike laughed aloud, then winced and grabbed at his side. "Red, I think I love you." She grinned back, the same ferocity with which she had met Illyria transmuted into something more mischievous than deadly. Angel would absolutely hate being saved by his wayward childe's grace, and anything extra that Spike received from the godhood and sunlight running twinned through Illyria's veins would be mediated, processed, by the magic that kept Spike ambulatory.

 

Spike met Illyria's eyes in a final question and she gave a curt nod in response, again stretching her throat to the side. He nuzzled for a moment at the curve of her shoulder, felt her pulse flicker and dip, and bit. His teeth caught on the hardened rime of her flesh before slipping down and piercing the vein. Blood spurted around his fangs and into his mouth, bitter like a demon but right like a human and full of bright hot light like the burn of his soul. He sucked, wiggling a little to keep the holes open against the healing magic still zinging through her, one two mouthfuls and he had never felt better, could feel the ice and bite of his body healing itself, a third and he was to the man he had been yesterday what Spike was to William. Three more for Angel, and all together it was barely more than she would lose if she donated blood, but Spike was reeling, high as a kite and those silver flashes were in him, now, jumping and skittering with the pulse he didn't have.

 

He pulled his teeth out of her and licked the trickle of blood he had left even as the wounds closed up. Spike had to lean back against the cabinets, brace himself against the whirl and tilt of the room and the heave of the floor under his legs.

 

"Hell of a rush, Blue," he murmured happily.

 

"Now I know what to get you for Christmas." Illyria jerked in the process of getting up, half-crouched over him and her eyes wild, then calm. "That was the shell." She shook herself as Spike scowled. "The Fred-girl. She spoke without my mediation." She looked down at Spike and over at Willow, who had pulled herself to her feet. Two steps, and she had her hands hard on Willow's shoulders, staring at her. "This should not be possible. You should not be possible."

 

"They breed 'em right in Sunnyhell," Spike snickered.

 

"What's wrong?" Willow asked.

 

"When I healed myself, with your magic, I..." She trailed off, grasping for words. "In preparation for my arrival, this body was hollowed. My organs are reconstituted variations of increased efficiency of the originals. Similarly, the soul was eradicated. Destroyed. All that was left were sparks of memory, ghosts in the machine," she tossed a sudden smile at Spike, who only stared. "Fred exists within me."

 

"Holy fucking hell." Spike patted his pockets. "I need a cigarette."

 

"What does that have to do with me? You used the magic, I just provided it." Willow looked happy but confused.

 

Illyria whirled on her. "When I arrived in this form I had access to magics more powerful than you have ever considered - and yes, I can smell that which you have done upon you. As soon as I understood what had been done, understood that others had been hurt by the loss of the one whose shape I posess, I attempted to do what you have just done, knowing even then that it was not possible."

 

Willow just gaped.

 

Illyria shifted form, and Fred stood before her. "Here now, darlin', it's certainly not a disservice you've done me." She wrapped her arms around Willow, who stood rigid in her embrace. "It's really me," she murmured, tilting her head to look at Willow before turning to look at Spike. He was trembling on the floor, magic and godhood still dancing their tilt-a-whirl tango in his veins, looking furious. She knelt before him, the red leather that she had kept even when she changed creaking and slicking through the congealed blood. She pressed a hand to Spike's cheek. "Don't look like that, Spike. How many people do you know who've come back from the dead?"

 

"How?" He croaked, barely daring to believe.

 

Fred shrugged. "Willow and I will figure it out." She turned again, swiveling on her knee and leaving a clear streak on the gory floor. "You are coming with us, right?"

 

Willow nodded, walking over and sinking down again on the floor, this time with the side of her body pressed flush against Spike, knee against the curve of Fred's calf.

 

They stayed as they were for a few long moments before Spike shook himself and rose. "Bloody hell. Forgot about Peaches." Willow chuckled and Illyria sat beside her.

 

Together they watched as Spike pulled Angel's head up onto his lap, deliberately not looking at the barely-there pinking of the sheets wrapped around his body - barely-there because there was so little blood left to spill - and used a tooth to split the skin of his wrist. Only then did Willow realize that he had never slipped out of game-face.

 

Spike brought his wrist around to Angel's mouth and frowned - the cut had already healed over. Scowling, he tore a deeper wound, sucking on his own wrist for a moment as he dipped his head as close to Angel's as he could get. Trying to keep the cut open by force of will, he pressed it against Angel's mouth. Angel scented the blood and surged, jerking up to fasten his teeth into Spike's arm. He sucked hard for an excruciating moment, then his hands came up and grabbed on and he tapered off to a steady suckling.

 

After only a few swallows Spike detached his wrist from Angel's mouth. Angel tried to follow, but Spike pressed him down with a hand to the forehead. Angel lay on the floor, and Spike could imagine what he was feeling - he had had less to drink, and less blood in him to begin with, so even the diluted magic should be setting off fireworks in his head.

 

Spike stood and pulled his shirt over his head with a wink to the two women who sat watching him. Willow chuckled and Illyria winked back, which had Spike dropping his leer with a thud. Shaking himself, he smiled back and began to unwind the soaked linen strips that had so recently been keeping his insides off of his outsides. After a few moments he was done, staring at the unscarred skin of his stomach. Nothing should heal that fast. Ever.

 

Willow rose and walked over to him, leaning down to press her fingers to the place the wound had been. Little streaks of silver danced over his skin, past the fine blood-caked hairs, and up into her hand, sinking in with a soft whisper. "Well. That certainly seemed to work."

 

Illyria walked past them, pausing only to draw a slow finger across the breadth of Spike's abdomen, before beginning the process of heating more blood.

 

Willow smirked and pulled down on Spike's ear, again surprising herself by realizing that she hadn't noticed when he started looking human again. He glared at her but bent over, accommodating her desire to whisper into his ear. "I think Fred just told Illyria that she's a girl," she hissed, and Spike started, jerking up so fast the blood couldn't keep up. Willow cackled as Spike reeled, looking from Willow to Illyria to Willow to Angel to Illyria and... he was dizzy.

 

"Oh."

 

Illyria was back, pressing another mug of blood into his hand, and when he drank it it tasted like water, nothing to the sizzle and burn of witch-light and god's blood, but he needed something to steady him, and something to keep his veins full so his muscles could work and the magic could flow, so he knocked it back and went to get himself some more. With his back to the room he heard Willow lifting a groggy-sounding Angel to a crouch, Illyria offering the second mug of blood, the glugging of Angel's swallows, the spitting and gagging and the steady thud of three hearts...

 

Spike dropped his blood.


	2. No More Winnebagos

"You're not human," Spike accused, poking Angel in the chest. "Smell funny."

"Thanks." Angel spoke with a drawl that amused Willow, but there was panic underneath. "Prophecy just said live to die, nothing about humanity. Shanshu. Fuck." Angel swearing amused Willow even more.

Illyria leaned in and sniffed at Angel's neck. "What does he smell like?" She asked, obviously annoyed that she couldn't tell the difference.

"Dunno. Still smells like a vampire, but I can't smell the demon. Plus there's that whole heartbeat thing."

"Oh." She tilted her head, peering at him. "You are weak. You must be fed."

"She's right. You've only got a few pints of blood in you; you're running on magic. Should I heat up some more?" Willow asked, already moving to the fridge.

"God no!" Angel jerked away from the half-full mug still sitting beside him.

"What part of 'not a vampire' didn't you get, Red?" Spike turned to Angel. "Got any human food in this dump?"

Angel nodded. "In the second fridge. Didn't know," he looked around the room, taking them all in, his eyes settling finally on the counter where Gunn was laid out, "who was going to make it."

Willow started to tear up again, so Spike jerked his head towards the fridge. She nodded and rose, brushing her hand over Angel's shoulder and whispering an apology as she went.

"Boy went out fighting, Angel. Red kept him on his feet 'slong as she could."

Angel blinked hard, fighting back tears that clung to his lashes. "How the hell did we survive that?" He was getting woozy, lack of blood overpowering the surge of magic that had come from Illyria's pick-me-up. He swayed back and Spike swooped around, pulling Angel back to rest against his chest, his legs parallel to his grand-Sire's.

"The good witch over there. Felt the mojo and came to visit; don't you remember?"

"I remember. But still. There were so many... so many." Angel sighed, twisting back to rest more comfortably against Spike's chest. Spike fumbled a comforting hand over Angel's shoulder, still discomfited by the steady thrum of a heartbeat, too slow for a human but definitely present.

"We're a helluva team." Spike sighed. "What are we gonna do now?"

"We? You're staying with us?" Angel cocked his head against Spike's collarbone and peered up at him.

Spike snarled down at him. "'Course. So's Red."

Angel smiled. "Good." Then Willow was there, pressing microwaved soup towards him. He ate - and ate - and ate. The next hour was filled with Angel's delighted grunts, though soon after he was groaning and holding his stomach.

"Stupid blighter; haven't used your stomach in centuries!" Spike bundled his duster - only slightly stiff with blood - under Angel's head. "Sleep it off; we'll figure out what's up next."

"Mmkay." Angel turned his back on them and curled up under one of the sheets Illyria had brought in, mumbling to himself as he fell asleep.

Spike skirted the wide puddle of dried blood to join Illyria and Willow, perched on a counter by the 'fridge.

"You are being remarkably calm." Fred was gone, just a bright shadow in Illyria's blue eyes.

"Today we recover. Tomorrow we die. Next month we heal." Willow shrugged, survivor of too many horrors. Spike only nodded. The brunt of the losses sustained hadn't even touched her, but she knew what the rest of them felt - better than they did, so soon after the fact.

"That is illogical."

"What isn't?"

Illyria only nodded. "What are we to do next?"

"Excellent question, pet. Red, any ideas?"

Willow chewed on her lower lip for a moment before answering. "Xander."

"What about the whelp?"

"He's been tracking down Slayers in Africa; Giles didn't want me coming after you, so he probably won't be thrilled if we show up on his doorstep." She craned her neck to look at Angel, curled up on the floor on the other side of the room.

"Understatement. Watcher's never liked me."

"You might be surprised. He was... impressed by your sacrifice in Sunnydale." She turned back to focus on Spike, who scowled.

"Difference between respect and affection, pet. Let's not go there quite yet."

"Exactly. And Buffy's in Scotland, training Slayers. I doubt she wants a vamp in the mix."

"What!?" Spike slid off the counter and automatically groped for a cigarette. "Thought she was livin' the high-life in Rome with the Bit?"

Willow snickered. "Andrew's idea."

"Huh?" He lit up and sucked a full half-inch to ash.

"We took out a town, Spike. Faith and Wood showed up on the streets of Cleveland with half-a-dozen mini-Slayers and a brand-new armory, Kennedy and I were mixing things up in Rio, Buffy kept getting arrested in London, and little girls all over the world started looking for us - the visions."

"Buffy got arrested!" Spike choked on smoke and started to laugh. Illyria cocked her head at him and let out a snicker of her own.

"She forgets that not everyone was raised on a hellmouth; some places, the cops actually pay attention."

"Watcher must've loved that." He settled, leaning back against the counter across from the two women. "So what's that have to do with Andrew?"

"We had to tone things down, so Buffy decided to let some of the mini-Slayers and their new watchers patrol London - they're a bit better at the whole low-profile thing - and start training a squad to take on anything really big. Andrew got us to magic up a handful of glamours and we sent a few Slayers out to live the highly visible high life so the UN and the demon population would have something to focus on. Dawn's staying in Rome with Andrew and one of the mini-Slayers, who is, in fact, dating the Immortal. Silly little thing, though. Dawn hates her."

Spike goggled.

"Thus, Xander." She fixed her eyes on Spike. "He's been having some trouble, we could go help him out. Give all of you a chance to process. And he'll have news from everyone else, and we can figure out what to do next."

"Sounds like a decent layover, then. So, pet, can you mojo us across the Atlantic?"

She looked at him for a long moment, then curled her lip. "Hardly. I tapped myself out today, and it's not comin' back anytime soon. We're going by boat." Spike groaned. "I'd say maybe two weeks from Boston to Angola, or four from LA. Think we can get across the country?"

"Sure. Trade in the pouf's car for a truck or van or something - can't believe I'm gonna drive a van - and trade off on the driving, shouldn't take more than a few days."

"Excellent. I've got some money, so I'm going to run out to an internet cafe and start pulling some strings, get us a spot on a cargo ship, okay?"

"Sounds like a plan. Peaches can pay you back; the lawyers were payin' him pretty to do their dirty work." Willow nodded solemnly. "Get back fast, and catch some sleep, eh? I'll go out at sunset and get us a vehicle."

"No more winnebagos?"

"Promise."


	3. Interlude

"I was once king among gods." Illyria spoke without inflection, blue eyes trained on the steady pitch and swell of the grey ocean beyond the orange railing of the cargo vessel. Willow leaned back against the railing and nodded, listening. "I claimed dominion over this planet and a multitude of others; I bore the power to reduce all life to ashes or roses at my whim, and restrained myself from sheer benevolence. I was old when the continents held a different shape, and the feet of my army helped to crack them apart. I was everything, and have been reduced to barely more than nothing."

"That's a bit harsh," Willow interjected. "I mean, I watched you fight. You're still incredibly powerful."

Illyria looked directly into the witch's eyes, and her lips quirked in amused condescension. "What I was, what you made of me, is to my former glory what the stars are to the sun. The same in essentials, but incredibly, terribly distant."

Willow sighed. "I know the feeling." She jerked. "Not... I mean... Obviously I don't, but..."

Illyria laughed, a sharp bark that shared little with humor. "Do not be concerned. I have seen your works, past and present, and I feel your loss." Willow nodded, sinking her head into her shoulders. "And that is what is wrong." She stepped forward, clenching her fingers so tightly around the railing that it groaned with resentment. "I mourn for Wesley. I swore not to kill, and he swore to teach me about humanity. What he could not do in life, he accomplished with his death. I long for the days when my power reigned supreme, for the times when ones such as the Wolf, Ram and Hart would never dare to whisper of me, much less seek to control me. I ache for my loss. But I mourn a friend."

"Illyria, would you mind if I asked a rude question?" Willow blushed and ducked her head, waiting for the other's answer.

"If you do not take offense if I refuse to answer, then I shall not take offense at the question."

"Then... Does Fred mind? About you sleeping with Spike?" Her flush was spreading rapidly, tinting her ears pink.

"The shell's persona is neither wholly integrated nor always self-aware, though it is becoming ever more so. But the... Fred," she spoke her shell's name with a decisive exhale, " is not averse to my pet's physical form, and understands my need for solace." Illyria rose and turned to go. "The shell is weary. I will find my pet."

For long minutes after Illyria left, Willow stared out at the ocean. "Solace," she murmured.


	4. That's Not the Issue

"He lives in Bengo, maybe forty kilometers from Caxito - thirty kilometers from Luanda, where we're docking. We can hire a car for the night, or..." Willow looked around at them. "I think we'll go by foot."

"'s a long way for you to walk, pet." Spike looked her over; Willow was fit, but not a runner.

"I've got a big, strapping lad to help me along," she simpered, looking up at Angel from under her lashes. He groaned. "Or, I could fly. I'll be fine. But Xan'll kill me if I show up with a cabin-fevered hyperactive vampire. This way we should get there an hour or so before dawn, and we'll all be a bit less hyper."

Willow and Angel had just come below deck, Angel scratching at the peeling sunburn on his nose. Illyria yawned and stretched, only remembering to cover her naked body after the sheet slipped down to pool at her waist. "Sounds like a plan."

"Cabin-fevered hyperactive vampire?" Spike scowled as he lurched from the low bed towards the chair where his clothes were folded; Willow looked pointedly away from his iridescent buttocks.

"Sounds about right," Angel chuckled, tossing Spike a hand-axe from the small bag of weapons that had survived the fight in LA. Spike snatched it from the air without turning around and spun it to slip the haft through his beltloop before putting on his shirt.

"Shut it, Peaches."

Illyria rose, willing her clothing into being as she went. She had discovered that it could be swelteringly hot both on deck and in the tiny converted cargo bin they shared, and had adopted Willow's costume of shorts and a T-shirt; she kept her hair, nails and eyes blue, but her skin-tone was evenly pale and her lips pink. She quickly smoothed the sheet over the bed and stood in time to catch the long knife that Angel flipped her direction. She stared at it for a moment, then slipped it into the sheath that shimmered into existance on her belt. "How long until sunset?"

"Sun's down. You two slept the day away." Willow was picking through what was left in the bag. She held out a second axe towards Angel and claimed a basic stake for herself before turning to catch Spike's leer.

"Weren't exactly sleeping, pet."

Willow rolled her eyes. "Color me surprised. Anyway, we're docking in a few minutes, and the captain asked if I could keep you down here until we're secure. Apparently you... unnerve... some of his crew."

"Fancy that." Angel zipped up the bag and dumped it next to the other, smaller bag that held the few clothes they had bought before boarding the cargo ship. After two weeks in a box, the clothes were suffering from the lack of a proper washroom. The four of them were rather ripe, themselves, though they had finagled a few sponge-baths in the tiny toilet and most of the smell was masked by the cigarette smoke that permeated the cabin. The ship was crewed by semi-aquatic demons who didn't feel the need to outfit their single guest room with a shower, and Willow's contact had warned them to bring toilet paper on board with their other supplies. Luckily the crew was used to transporting vampires, and there was a 'fridge in the galley that was devoted to blood and, in this rare instance, human food; the demon's blood was unpotable and they lived on raw fish, so any passengers had to bring their own food with them.

Everyone ran a quick check through their possessions as the ship lurched into harbor and was locked down, and it was only fifteen or so minutes later that the captain banged on their door and told them it was okay to come out.

The sky was still hazy with twilight when the four made their precarious way across the slippery docks and into the warren of dirty streets that comprised the warehouse district. Night watchmen were beginning their patrols, and dayshift workers were making their hasty ways home, but the travelers slipped unnoticed through town and out to where the warren of alleys spread into wider boulevards flanked by low bungalows, and further to the point where dust and jungle vied to press against the city's borders.

True to her word, as soon as they broached the city limits, Willow took to the air. She sparkled fuzzily for a brief moment, then shot ahead. With a wild whoop, Spike took off after her, Illyria and Angel in howling pursuit.

They made quick passage, bounding effortlessly over the dry streams and heaped brush that carved the night-cooled landscape, moonlight brighter than an LA evening casting everything into harsh relief. It wasn't until they came to the base of a low cliff that Spike realized that the ground had been climbing for some time, and when he looked back, he could see Luanda's glow in the distance. Willow was waiting for them on a rockpile, legs primly crossed and their two duffles and the cooler that held their waning supply of blood stacked neatly at her feet.

"Show off," Spike grumbled, dropping himself beside her. Willow merely smirked.

"Everyone okay?" Angel leaned against a tree, panting. He was still getting used to the sensation of his heart beating in his chest and breaths that were more than dramatic flair, and he had grown softer over the past year. Still, the thundering rush of blood in his veins and the unaccustomed sting in his muscles prompted him with a glorious compulsion to push his newly unaccustomed body to its limits.

"I find I enjoy this type of night." Illyria cocked her head and looked around, through the shadows that veiled the sparse woods. "The plants whisper; though we no longer share a language, it is good to hear."

"Good to know, pet." Spike just shook his head at Willow's questioning gaze. "And you, Red? Doin' all right with the mojo?"

"All souped up. I've been storing up since we left, and... It's so much easier here. I could fly all of us to Cairo and back and barely feel it. This place is such a rush!"

Spike grinned at the excited Willow-babble. "I know how you feel. Everythin's... thrumming. Didn't feel like this the last time I came visitin'; must be the new diet."

"That was weeks ago." Willow quirked an eyebrow. "Wasn't it?"

Spike ducked his head. "Well, you know. Sex. Vampires. God-Kings..."

"It's all about the blood." She smirked.

"You've been drinking from Illyria?" Angel suddenly caught up with the conversation and jerked upright. "What the hell are you thinking?"

Before he could advance on his wayward childe, Illyria extended a restraining hand.

"Angel. This is neither your decision nor your concern, though I will indulge your temerity to the extent of admitting to have found the experience pleasurable. But since the point is now moot, you will refrain from further comment."

"Moot?" Willow asked the question, since Angel was still gawping.

"Part of the journey, Red. We hit shore, and the world comes back." Willow looked at Spike for a long moment, then nodded.

"Then the only question is... Who can get to the top first?" And with that she shot upwards, their bags trailing behind.

"Cheater!" Spike shouted, before leaping at the weathered rock and beginning his own ascent.

Willow beat them all, of course, but Illyria was a closer second than she had anticipated. The two of them took off again without waiting for the others, rapidly covering terrain that morphed from the dry, dusty coastal plain, dotted with sparse, thirsty vegetation, to the lusher interior jungle. They soon reached a dirt track that carved through the landscape and Willow set down, willing her magic into her muscles rather than the air around her so that she could keep up with her companion. Before long, they approached the tiny village, near but not part of Bengo, where Xander lived.

Willow slowed to a halt as soon as she could make out the shapes of the individual buildings, drawing Illyria's attention to the only two-story building in town.

"I haven't been here, of course, but I'm thinking that that's Xander's place. He's got two Slayers living with him right now, and has a workshop - he's a carpenter - on the ground floor. He told me that the building used to be housing for visiting medics, or something."

Illyria nodded, keen eyes penetrating the pseudo-gloom of the town's simple cross-hatching streets. Sodium lanterns flared at scattered crossings, lessening the moon's effect, but there were still several hours before dawn and the town was quiet.

"Peaches and I picked up a scent, a ways back, if you're game." Spike loomed suddenly between them, mildly interested eyes flicking over the array of scattered dwellings and the low brick building that housed the local stores. "We've got a bit, yeah? And I doubt the whelp'd be thrilled to see us quite so bright and early."

"Yes. Let us hunt these demons, then." Illyria spun on her heel and lifted a foot to begin her return to where Angel waited, barely out of sight. Willow's movement in the opposite direction, however, had her turning her head. "You do not join us?"

"Huh?" Willow looked surprised. "But I'm not a fighter."

Spike cocked an eyebrow, a smirk teasing at his lips. "Right. Must've been some other white-haired witch shootin' the mojo at the demon hordes a few weeks ago. But that's not the issue. You don't really wanna wait on Harris' stoop for us, do you? C'mon, it'll be fun." He was practically bouncing, the anticipation of violence bubbling through him.

Willow waved a hand and their bags disappeared, the action echoed by a faint thump from the distant porch where they landed. She smiled. "Let's go."

The three moved together towards Angel, Willow again gathering power around her to accentuate her own physical skills so that she could keep the pace set by her supernatural companions. Without a word, Angel turned and disappeared from the side of the track, fading into the shelter of the trees.

They moved easily, loping along over dusty ground, Angel in the lead and Willow behind, Illyria and Spike flanking her at some little distance. Periodically, either Angel or Spike would raise his head to sniff at the air, always quickly imitated by Illyria, who seemed frustrated that she could not track their quarry so easily. Finally, Angel raised a hand to halt their progress.

The gentle slope of the land had funneled rainfall into a twisting path that, here, cut deeply into the top layer of sandstone to create a gorge littered with granite boulders. Though it was the height of the dry season, water still glinted from the depths and chuckled where it danced past the glittering stones. What captured Angel's interest, however, was the deep shadow that marked the entrance to a cave just below the opposite bank.

"Good to know you haven't lost your touch," Spike hissed, and Angel growled in response.

"How're we doing this?" Willow asked. She had been surprised when Angel hadn't protested her involvement, but his easy acceptance had made her more comfortable in her role as part of the hunting party. "Straight on in, guns a-blazing?"

"We have no artillery." Illyria frowned. "Or was that metaphorical?"

"Yup. I'm the metaphor girl. Just asking if we've got a plan, or are we heading straight for the slice-n-dice? I say straight in; I can get us out if it gets hairy, and I'm definitely up for a little ruction." Willow's grin was fierce.

"You're my kinda girl, Red. Let's do it." At a nod from Angel, Spike made the leap that brought him to the opposite bank. He dropped to the flattened dirt that marked the entryway to the cave as the others flew overhead - Willow literally. When all four were facing the cave's mouth he drew his axe and winked at Willow, before disappearing into the darkness. Angel muttered under his breath and followed, leaving the other two to exchange wry smiles before they, too, made their way into the cave.

"It's not natural." Spike's whisper echoed softly back towards the others, and Willow murmured a spell that caused a sourceless light to flicker around them. Spike was right; the tunnel was relatively smooth-walled, and the floor flat.

"It's not machined, though. Must be burrowers, or something." Willow reached out to touch the pattern of gouges that marked the rounded tunnel walls.

"Makes sense. Hope they're scrappy, though. Hate to go to all this trouble for a demon mole, or summat." Spike was sauntering slowly forward, bright eyes belying his casual movement.

"I'm gonna go with a yes." Angel pointed to the shadows just beyond the reach of Willow's spell, and she moved forward to bring it into the light. The dark form that had caught Angel's attention was a dark red, pebbled like rhinocerous skin, and crusty with the creamy remnants of some sort of bodily fluid. Spike nudged it with his boot, and Willow realized that it was more than twice his size. It flopped inelegantly to the side, a crumpled heap of claws and fangs and horny protrusions between deep wounds that had long stopped oozing. The movement stirred the dry air, and Spike coughed and jumped backwards.

"Bloody hell, but that's vile!" The little moisture left had been trapped under the demon's corpse, and the blood had either rotted, or had been incredibly noxious to begin with. Either way, Willow's stomach heaved in protest and Angel grew pale beneath his sunburn.

"Let's keep moving, okay? Dead, stinky things aren't supposed to come until later in tonight's program." Willow steadied her voice and her stomach with effort, but her steps forward were sure.

They traveled only a few more feet, however, before the light from Willow's spell revealed that the tunnel was widening. This time it was Spike who called the halt, straining his ears for any signs of movement.

"Doesn't matter, does it? If they're in there, the light already gave us away." Angel shrugged as he spoke and moved the last dozen feet to where the tunnel opened up into a rounded, artificial cavern.

Together they stepped into the space, and Willow spoke the words that caused the light she shed to expand, casting out all shadows. The occupants of the cave hissed and sheltered their wide, compound eyes from the sudden glare.

"I'm guessing... not so much with the burrowing."

"Their appendages are ill-adapted to such a task." Illyria turned and winked at Willow. "But they'll be hella fun to fight!" She drawled.

The demons who had taken over the cave from its creators were hideous. The corpse they had passed in the hallway had been huge, and terrifying in its own way, but these monstrous creatures were something wholly other. There were three of them, black bulky things that, at full extent, would have measured at least twelve feet. They were vaguely tortoise-like, with thick chitinous carapaces that articulated fleshily with smooth, heavy arms. Four of them. The upper pair was bulky and massive, ending in a bony club that was ridged with heavy spines, while the lower had two elbows that both bent inwards, allowing the arms to fold neatly against the heavy shell. These had more delicate, hand-like extremities that were quickly pulling short swords and daggers from the cache behind the pile of plant matter and furs that had apparently been their bedding.

The first of the three creatures roared, a deep bellow that seemed to sound in two octaves at once and rattled Willow's cheekbones. She swore and took to the air, unwilling to expose herself to direct attack but ready to intervene in the coming battle if necessary. From above, she had a better view of the creatures. Their legs folded in like a rabbit's, close to the body but capable of launching a forceful assault. And their heads... giant, predator's jaws glinting with dirty yellow teeth, bulging insect's eyes, long sensory slits along the ridged and armored muzzle, and heavy plating from the crest of the head that swept along the neck to merge with the crenellation of the back shell.

The second creature picked up the roar, a lighter sound that spurred the third, largest demon into action. It launched with a bellow of its own, driving with its immensely powerful hind legs towards the cluster of warriors that had invaded its den. Its opponents scattered, swearing, and it struggled to halt itself.

"They can't control themselves if they're going fast," Spike noted. "See if you can get one of 'em to bash itself into the wall, eh?" And he threw his axe at the first demon.

It clattered from the beast's carapace, but drew its attention. With a heavy, meaty grunt, it launched itself in turn. When Spike danced back, attempting to draw it into a collision with the wall behind him, it slammed one club-fist into the ground and used the force of the impact to change the direction of its momentum, circling the focal point and running up onto the wall before launching itself horizontally at Spike. The collision was brutal, knocking Spike back and into the opposite wall, thirty feet away.

"Scratch that, then," he muttered, clambering unsteadily to his feet.

Angel was having his own problems, trying to block his opponent's blows with his hand-axe and only rarely getting in an ineffective strike of his own. Though he had no trouble dodging the nimble lower arms, one of the larger swept him aside with a thick thud; he only barely rolled away from a punishing downward strike.

Illyria, for her part, was darting merrily about the second demon, thrusting her long knife into the thick skin that covered the demon's shoulder and hip joints. Though her blows often skittered aside, she drew blood more than once and the demon's right lower limb was hanging limp.

"Get it at the joints," Willow bellowed, the only one able to see what Illyria's plan was. Angel and Spike grunted their acknowledgement and turned their attention back to their opponents.

"I request assistance," Illyria yelped, leaping away from a knife-thrust before rolling the opposite direction when the heavy upper arm on the demon's other side swung in her direction.

"Whatcha need, pet?" Spike hurdled his own opponent, vaulting from its back to land behind Illyria's.

"A distraction. Physical. Left side." They exchanged a quick, considering glance, and Spike nodded.

"Gotcha." Once more, he thrust his axe futilely into the creature's face, and danced aside when it lumbered to face the new threat. "Oi! Up for some ring-around-the-rosie?" With that less than terrifying threat, Spike ducked under the left-handed blow that was sweeping towards him and grabbed the agile lower arm just above the wrist. He jerked mightily, feeling a satisfying snick of bones complaining under his hand, and began racing around the demon's back. Illyria performed a similar maneuver on the creature's other side, wrenching up and backwards on its dislocated lower right arm as she moved to meet Spike. With a horrific rending sound and a nauseating shriek from the beast, its arm parted from its body.

Angel looked over from where he was doing his best to avoid the double blows of the other two demons to see the third caterwauling its agony; that only lasted until Illyria leapt up and forward, grabbed the horny ridge of plating over the beast's upper shoulder, and used her momentum to slam her fist past the conjunction of bone and gristle that marked the place its arm had been. She rooted about inside its chest cavity for a long moment before Spike yelled a warning, and she leapt free only when it began to collapse. The keening stopped as the demon hit the floor.

"That was unexpected." Willow floated down to look at the body. "What did you do? Tear out its heart?" She cocked her head in avid, questioning interest, and Spike snickered at the show of trademark curiosity.

"There was no heart. I could not differentiate any distinct organ systems, so I merely ruptured as much as I could in the time alotted." Illyria shrugged.

"Well, that was way too much work for one little beasty. Red, you got any ideas for an easier kill?" Spike kicked at the severed arm, which was seeping tainted red ichor onto the floor.

She reached down to prod at the demon's carapace. "I'm guessing these are invulnerable?"

"Seem to be. Everything but the -" He was cut off by Angel's pained bellow.

"Guys! I'm gettin' trashed over here!" Angel was bleeding from the forehead and favoring his right arm, but was still managing to evade most of the concerted efforts of the demons he was against. For a large man, he was impressively agile, and much quicker than his opponents. It was obvious, however, that he was tiring.

"Distract them for a minute; I'll take care of it." Willow took to the air again, moving to hover just above the fight. Spike dove in with a holler, and Illyria shrieked a high-pitched battle cry as she leveled a punishing blow at what would have been the demon's kneecap, if it had kneecaps.

Above them, Willow's hair crackled and fanned out from her head as she raised her hands, fingers splayed wide. She thrust her fingers into the web of energy and magic that made up the universe, and beckoned. The light in the cavern grew dim, flickered, went out, then surged back into being with punishing brightness.

"Bloody hell!"

"Watch that!"

"Please refrain!"

And the demons roared.

"Sorry!" Willow squeaked, but grinned. "Try 'em now."

The demons were facing each other across Angel and Spike, who were fighting back to back. Illyria had darted behind one and attempted to climb its back in an attempt to reach its eyes, but it jerked and threw her off. As her muttered imprecations were overridden by Willow's command, Angel and Spike pressed themselves shoulder to shoulder, facing opposite directions. Suddenly, they leapt into motion, pivoting about the center point of their clasped hands, and reversed direction in order to spin out, using the restraining force of their linked hands to aid their jumping kicks so that, simultaneously, their booted feet crashed into - and through - the heavily armored shells of their foes.

The unexpected success took them both by surprise, and they crashed heavily to the ground. Illyria leapt over them and slammed her fist into the pulsing red-black morass of the first demon's chest, who was bellowing its pain. As she thrashed about inside its body, rending as much as she could before the inevitable collapse, it grated its arms into position to smash her between them. With a warning trill, Willow dove from her perch in the air and smashed into Illyria's side, knocking them both to the ground. The demon's arms thumped pointlessly together, and it fell forward.

Angel and Spike, having only just regained their feet, scurried clear of the imminent crushing before, with matching shrugs, they turned to smash groping hands into the open wound on the last, retreating, demon's chest. After a moment of rummaging, it, too, collapsed.

The four stared, wide-eyed and drenched in demon guts, at each other, the demon corpses, the nearly-empty cave. Then, they started laughing. Willow sagged against Angel and Spike braced himself on Illyria, who allowed herself a twitch about her mouth that could almost be termed amusement, while Angel tried to simultaneously chuckle and support Willow's weight.

Finally, after some time, the laughing stilled, though any shared glance was quick to set them off again.

"Well. That was fun." Spike grinned and turned, scanning the floor of the cave for his discarded axe. Within moments, he, Angel and Illyria were resecuring their respective weapons to their belts, and the four turned as one to leave. "So, Red. What'd those witchy little fingers of yours get up to?"

Willow grinned. "Well, I didn't want to play with fire - turns out that one of my friends is highly flammable, and I didn't know how much damage it would do, anyway. And I don't know any way to conjure ice. So instead of icing them like I wanted, I just froze them."

"There's a difference?" Angel asked.

"Of course!" Spike assured him. "What is it?" He hissed at Willow, causing her to chuckle and Angel to glare.

"Well, you know how I can suck the ambient magic from the air around me?" She looked around for nods and received them. "Magic and energy are similar, so I just piggy-backed one on the other and used magic to suck the energy from the demons' shells."

"Huh?" Angel grunted.

"She sucked the heat from their shells, and converted it into light. Right?" Illyria, Fred evident in the curiosity expressed in the quirk of her brow, asked Willow.

"Pretty much. Made them brittle, so you could punch through, but not too much, so I didn't shut down their internal systems - whatever those are. Didn't want it to be too easy." Spike slung a sludge-covered arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

"And you weren't gonna come. Silly girl."

"You weren't?" Angel stopped and turned to face them, brow creased with surprise.

"I dunno..." Willow stammered.

"She's used to being on the research squad. Hasn't yet gotten used to being completely kick-ass in the field." Illyria waggled her eyebrows and her eyes flashed brown.

"Y'know, that's a little disconcerting," Willow complained. "Not that I'm not glad to see Fred, and all, but... I can't wait for you two to integrate."

"We will never form a seamless personality, Willow. But with time, we shall each grow accustomed and will perhaps be able to make the transition more smoothly."

"Yup. Disconcerting."

By this point they were outside of the cave, standing on the little path that led up to the bank. With a murmur and a move of her hand, Willow reabsorbed the light that had guided their way.

"Guys? We took too long." The sky was a paler shade of navy, stars shining with less stark brilliance. "Hold on." With no more warning than that, Willow gripped Angel and Illyria by the wrists, her hip pressed into Spike's side, and teleported them to where she had deposited their baggage. Unfortunately for them, they actually landed on top of the bags, and spilled in an ungainly pile across Xander's porch. There was much thudding and swearing as they regained their feet, and so they shouldn't have been surprised when the door eased open and a one-eyed carpenter, dressed in boxers and a T-shirt and holding an axe, stared out at them.

"Spike?"


	5. When the Hell Did He Grow Up?

The first thing Xander had done after opening the door and finding the four survivors of the L.A. apocalypse on his doorstep was take a swing at Spike. The punch had connected, knocking him back against the pile of baggage and sending him, arms pinwheeling, to the ground. Willow's shocked protest and Angel's protective growl had been cut off by Xander's immediate extension of a hand up. The disgruntled vampire had accepted the offer of assistance, smiling ruefully.

"Nope. Not the First."

"Good to know. Come in, then, Spike." And that was all he said as he turned his back on the four surprised guests on his porch and made his way back into the darkened house. They had looked at one another, questions on their lips and in their eyes, but Spike had simply shrugged and followed.

"Hate to say it, but it's good to see you again, Harris." He followed Xander through a narrow entry way, catching a glimpse of a shadowed parlor with a low, worn sofa-bed with rumpled sheets, and into a small kitchen. He blinked when Xander flipped the light switch, the lamp over the table humming and spitting for a long moment before settling down to a dull glow. The man moved quickly to the sink, turning on the water and flicking up his eyepatch to splash his face. After resettling the scrap of cloth, he lowered his hands to grip the sink's edge, his entire body tense.

"We thought you were dead." His voice was a raspy murmur, and Spike was surprised by the level of relief in his tone.

"Actually," Willow, who had followed the two men into the room, interrupted, "Andrew told Giles about him ages ago. He got some of us - the researchers - onto it, but we really haven't been able to figure out what happened. Andrew said that Spike didn't want us to know, though, so we've had to keep mum."

"And of course his Royal Stuff-Shirtedness was only following my wishes; nothin' to do with keeping me away from a certain Slayer?" Spike's voice was heavy with irony, and no little pain.

"Actually, we thought it was what you wanted. A chance to move on, maybe to prove that you could still be a good man without Buffy looking over your shoulder. For all we knew, you didn't love her anymore."

"Fat chance of that," Xander muttered.

"Well, he was sleeping with Illyria." Willow meeped when Spike shot her a glare.

"With who?" Xander spun around, pressing his back to the counter behind him and fixing his full attention on Spike for the first time.

"Blue chick, so high?" Spike gestured accordingly. "Hell, whelp, you had the right of it. Still love the Slayer, always gonna love the Slayer. But she and I've been over for a long time, and it's no use pretending otherwise."

"So you jump into bed with the next supergirl you meet?" Xander's appraising look was unexpectedly accusing, and Spike felt warmed at the thought that the boy might've come around to the thought of him and Buffy together. That was the only thing that kept him from snapping back.

"Not as such, no." Willow turned a surprised glance his direction at his calm tone, but he just nodded in her direction. She blinked, and looked away. "Look, Harris. Things have been rough, and Blue and I went in for some mutual comfort. Have you heard what happened a few weeks ago?"

Xander was surprised at the change in topic. "Just that something big went down, and Willow popped out of Council offices with no warning. Giles called to give me a heads-up, and the girls had some funky dreams, but that was all."

Spike nodded. "I suppose you'd heard about Angel goin' bad?"

"Andrew referring to him as 'Sith Angelus' in his reports kinda clued me in, yeah." That earned him a chuckle.

"He had us fooled, too. Look. Angel did some pretty foul things, yeah, but his final intent was noble enough. Three weeks ago, or thereabouts, we took out the Circle of the Black Thorn - the Senior Partners' Earthly associates."

"Senior Partners?"

Spike shook his head in disbelief. "They didn't tell you anything?"

"Kinda out of the loop. Africa's not exactly known for its reliable phone service, and Angel's doings didn't exactly make the memo circuit."

"That's not... entirely true." Willow blushed. "I'm pretty sure Giles knew. He wouldn't help Fred - wouldn't let me help Fred - because he knew that, if Angel decided to infiltrate the organization, he needed to have sacrificed one of his people. Since there was no guarantee we could do anything for her, he decided to let her go."

"That rat bastard!" Angel, who had been lurking in the entry way with Illyria, broke into the room. "He chose who would die? We lost Wes because of him!"

"What? No!" Willow paled. "I kept working on the problem, even after he told me not to. The only thing I could have done was make sure that Illyria couldn't rise. Nothing would have saved Fred."

"And Wes would've done his thing either way; mighta gone sooner, if he hadn't had Blue to watch out for." Spike extended a hand to Illyria, who entered the kitchen and leaned against him. Willow reached out to grip her hand.

"I honestly think that things turned out for the best. Not that Giles could know that, but his guilt is something to be dealt with another time. We still have Illyria, and Fred, and we did win in L.A..." Illyria squeezed her hand back.

"Hold up! Not that I have a clue in hell what's going on here, but I gotta know. Who are you?" He pointed at Illyria. "How is Fred still around, if she was supposed to be killed? And finally, how the fuck did Angel get into my house!?"

"Um," stammered Angel. "Surprise?"

Explanations took a while, but they finally got back around to the question of Angel.

"You aren't human." Xander inhaled sharply; his glance darted between the four bodies crowded into his tiny kitchen. "Are any of you human?"

"Human is a noun of arbitrarily assigned meaning; we each have a soul and are thus imbued with what is, perhaps, the essence of humanity, but none but the witch is human."

Spike and Angel both nodded as Illyria spoke, but Willow simply scowled at Xander.

"Don't look at me like that, Wils! You show up with color-change barbie and the undead twins and expect me to not ask? Wouldn't matter if something had happened - unless you went all veiny again, I guess, but I've got a box of yellow crayons in the back for emergencies." Xander attempted a smile that barely curled his lips, let alone reached his eye.

"Not funny, Xander." Willow crossed her arms and deepened her glare. "Very not funny."

Xander winced. "I know." He sighed and some of the tension went out of him; he leaned back against the doorframe and again looked his guests over. "Surprised, aren't I? Haven't talked to anyone in a few weeks, and suddenly I've got Deadboy - who's breathing - and Spike - who's not nearly as immolated as I thought he was - being escorted into my kitchen by my long-time-no-see best friend and some blue chick. The jokes may be coming, but they're still in transit." He huffed. "What the hell are you doing here, anyway?"

Willow spread her hands in questioning supplication. "Where else were we supposed to go?"

There was a long beat. "So. Who wants to tell me just how Angel got into my house without an invite?"

"He may not be human, but he's not a vampire, either." Willow shrugged. "We're not really sure what he is."

"And this happened how?"

Angel spoke. "There was a prophecy. It said that the vampire with a soul will play a major role in the apocalypse and become mortal. So the apocalypse came, I fought, and here I am."

"Great. So now you're gonna be running around squealing your superiority?" He turned pleading eyes on Willow. "Why couldn't Spike have gotten it?"

Spike jolted. "What, you think I wouldn't act all superior if it was me?"

Xander snickered. "You already do. And at least you've earned it." At the incredulous gazes that were sent his way, he rushed to defend himself. "Look, guys, I may be judgmental-boy, but I'm not blind." He stopped, shook his head, and laughed. "Much. Think about it. Angel gets cursed with a soul, spends a century slogging around in the gutter, gets shown a pretty girl as a prize - speaking of which, pedophilia much? She was fifteen! - and suddenly he's a Champion of the Powers that Be. Except that, until he runs off to L.A., he really doesn't do much Champion-ing. More swanning in with the cryptic and seducing the underage girl before going all evil, getting sent to hell, then breaking said girl's heart and running away. Of course, he's not so much for staying away. Instead, he shows up and plays the stalker just often enough to keep the girl from ever really moving on. Show me the good in that. And then we've got Spike. Godawful hair, but not quite so heavy on the mousse, so that's one point in his favor. Unsouled evil guy shows up, finds out his grandad's all gung-ho about the world-endage, and joins forces with his mortal enemy to save it. I'm glossing over the evil-doing; just take it as read. Then he leaves town, his girl dumps him, he comes back and scares the pants off me and causes serious relationship turmoil amongst the Scooby set, but the only serious injury isn't actually his fault. Leaves again, comes back, bad things happen, and then he's got a chip in his brain that keeps him from harming humans. Now, this is a guy with a serious reputation amongst the local baddies, but instead of stealing cash and buying blood or getting some minions to bring him dead bodies to suck on, he comes to his aforementioned mortal enemies and starts helping out in exchange for protection. They treat him like shit, which I really can't argue with, but he never burns the house down around them. Later still, he starts helping out of his own accord, falls in love with the same girl, looks out for her sister even after the girl dies, continues to get treated like shit - especially by the girl in question - and makes a major mistake, after which he runs away to get his soul. Comes back, sacrifices himself for the good of humanity, and saves the world. Again. Apparently wakes up a few weeks later in L.A., and rather than ditch the guys in need for the woman he loves, he sticks around and, you guessed it, saves the world." Xander mimed balancing his palms. "Tough choice."

"You just ignored everything he did wrong!" Angel protested.

"C'mon, Peaches, tell me how you really feel." Spike was shell-shocked, but that didn't stop him from jabbing at his Grandsire.

"Everything he did wrong when he was supposed to be incapable of caring what was wrong or right? When he was inherently evil? What can I say? I'm biased." Xander snickered, then sobered. "I've never liked you, Angel, and if you didn't show up with two of my best friends, you would never have been allowed in this house. But you did, and I'm going to assume that there's more to you than the self-centered, brooding child you were when I met you and let you stay. If, however, any harm comes to my friends or to the Slayers under my care - emotional or physical - then I will personally see to it that you fully understand the meaning of your newfound mortality."

"Bloody hell." Spike's whisper was the only sound in the silent room, the burble of the refrigerator's coolant system loud in the stillness.

Angel drew himself up from his slumped-shouldered posture and extended a hand. "Deal."

Xander looked at the hand, looked at Angel, at Willow, and finally at Spike. Then he shrugged and shook it. "Don't fuck up."

Spike looked back and forth between them. "Two best friends?"

Xander shrugged again. "I was in the moment. We'll work up to it." He ducked his head, suddenly shy. "If you're sticking around, I mean."

Spike gaped again, but quickly recovered. "Well, I don't particularly like the thought of spending the rest of my unlife in Africa, but Red here plans to drag me kicking and screaming to the Council steps, so I'll be around in the more general sense."

They exchanged wry smirks, covering up their nerves, before Xander addressed himself to Illyria. "So. What about you, then? Are you evil?" There was no malice in Xander's question, merely wary curiosity.

"Amoral," Willow interjected.

"Pre-moral." Illyria nodded sharply.

Xander took a moment to process, then nodded in return. "Yeah. I dated a girl like that. Well, not so much with the pre- as the a-, but still. Not big with the guiding compass, but even when she got her powers back she could understand human morality. Wasn't much for accommodation or acceptance of it, but she understood it. Spike, too. Turned into helpful," and here Spike exclaimed in offense, causing Xander to emphasize his next words, "*evil* vampire long before he got the soul. Way I see it, that just makes the decisions easier to make, because the wrong ones bite you in the ass. Although to hear Angel-cakes over there talk about it, soul's just a personality transplant. Somethin' there doesn't sit right, but I can't figure what it might be..." He mused mockingly, sneering at the flinching ex-vampire.

He spent a long moment staring at each of his guests in turn. "The only one here who hasn't been a villain at one point or another is me!" Xander whined.

"I never acted out of villainous intent. My internship as the resident 'Big Bad' was merely due to the lack of an appropriate acclimatization period." Only Illyria could enmesh condescension and ass-covering so thoroughly.

"Still. We've got what? Super-vamp," he nodded at Spike, who nodded back. "Super-witch," and Willow bobbed in a tiny curtsy. "Super-God-thing," to which Illyria only favored him with her non-communicative gaze. "And super-something-man." Xander turned to look at Angel, truly taking him in for the first time since his arrival. "What are you, anyway?"

Angel shrugged. "This Shanshu thing doesn't come with an instruction manual. Though I'm hoping there's some kind of warranty."

Xander goggled, then giggled. He cut off the undignified noise as soon as it began, looking around to see if anyone had noticed. They all had, of course, and the twist of Willow's lips had him choking and spiralling off into laughter.

After a few long minutes the laughter subsided, and Xander moved towards the 'fridge. "Have you guys been up all night? I've got to wake the girls up soon, and you can crash in their beds, if you want. Or I've got milk, juice, coffee and espresso, if you're still good to go."

"I'm still jazzed from the fight, actually. I'd just about kill for a coffee, though." Willow pulled out one of the three chairs around the tiny table and collapsed into it, Spike and Angel following suit and leaving Illyria to stand, alert, in the doorway.

"Fight?" Xander hummed his question as he pulled a yellow-glazed coffee-making monstrosity out of a cupboard, followed by two large tins.

"Whoa, boy. You're decked out!" Willow craned her neck to see the appliance around Xander's bulk.

Xander flushed. "There's good coffee around here, and since I'm now research-king, I demand my caffeination. You three want?" He gestured with the coffee scoop at the others, nodding when Angel and Spike accepted his offer of espresso. Illyria requested juice, which Willow moved to fetch for her.

"So. What's this about a fight?"

They proceeded to tell him about the demons they had faced that night, and were surprised when he bolted from the room, calling for Angel and Spike to follow him, leaving Willow and Illyria to finish making the drinks.

Several minutes later, the bed in the parlor was folded back into a couch and open books were scattered around a laptop on the coffee table. Xander was grunting questions at the other two, who paused in flipping through their volumes to peer over his shoulder at the Demons, Demons, Demons database.

Willow brought in a tiny yellow cup on a tiny yellow saucer and placed it precisely before Angel on the table. The minute adjustments and the rigorous way she held her hands in check tipped Xander off.

"You had some, didn't you?" He fixed an accusing eye on her, and he saw caffeine-induced giddiness pinwheeling in her eyes before she ducked her head.

"Nope," she assured him.

He brought his full gaze to bear on the top of her head, and apparently losing an eye had only increased its effectiveness, because as soon as she peeked up at him, she gulped and nodded.

"Maybe a little."

"Maybe she had to try out the machine four times before she was convinced that Angel's first espresso as a mortal would be up to par." Illyria's tone was wry, and Xander shot her a smirk. She smiled, slow and lazy, though her body was as erect as it had been before she had gained access to Fred's thought patterns.

"Well, the cups are little!" Willow punctuated her weak argument with a sideways nod that sent Xander into double- and triple-take land. That particular quirk was one he would have sworn was patented by the bleached wonder-vamp who was watching the whole display through lidded, amused eyes.

Angel chuckled, which surprised Xander more than anything else he had witnessed in his admittedly surprising morning. "Guess we won't have to worry about her falling asleep." He picked up the cup she had brought him and took a sip. "All that practice paid off. This is good."

Willow smiled and collapsed into a tailor's seat in front of the coffee table. "What've we got?"

"I'm guessing, based on your descriptions, that the demons you fought had taken over a K'Thgar nest. They're burrowers, built like boulders with tusks, and utterly non-violent. They snack on the bugs that grow in mulch piles; judging from the lack of rotting gunky stuff in the cave, I'm saying that they got cleaned out a while ago. I still haven't found a demon that matches up with the dead body you found, but the three you fought are called Uvumi. They were created as warriors for some immortal's private army, and he sold some of them off as gladiator stock. Since they have to be bred magically, I'm guessing you found some escapees. And since both the army and the games are in another dimension, someone must have helped them get away."

"Whoa. Go, Xander." Willow leaned over the coffee table, twisting her torso to look at the screen. The picture was old, hand-drawn and fuzzy, but definitely the same demon.

"Told you. I am the king of research." He smirked. "You guys need anything? I've gotta go wake the girls up, then there's breakfast to be made. I'm introducing them to a diet of all things grease and starch."

"Feed me!" Willow commanded, and the other three nodded. Xander just smirked and began making his way up the stairs.

"Who're these girls he keeps talking about?" Spike asked, commandeering the computer.

Willow's response was punctuated by Xander pounding on a door and bellowing in some unfamiliar language. She laughed and tried again. "I told you, Xander's job for the Council is rounding up new Slayers. He's been working for almost a year, and he's brought back almost a dozen."

"Even dozen, now, with these two. Giles is trying to get me to go back to England since he's got someone working their way north from South Africa. Apparently my girls are a bit harder to handle than some of the others." Xander started speaking before he even got to the bottom of the stairs, and he turned into the kitchen before he finished. The others got to their feet and followed him in.

"I've heard that, actually. But nobody told me what was wrong." Willow's question was implied, and Xander laughed.

"They're taking to the training fine, but apparently the Council is having trouble fitting them with Watchers. I'm s'posed to go back and set things straight."

"You really are coming back?" Willow squeaked, jumping on him and almost making him drop the carton of eggs he had pulled from the refrigerator.

"Down, girl. Yeah, think so. It's been a year, and there's no law that says I can't come back if I miss it." He started breaking eggs into a bowl, then turned to pick up the cheese he had set on the counter while the pan heated.

"You eat like this every day?" Spike asked. "Not exactly the local cuisine."

"No, it's not, is it?" Xander grinned. "Tonight's a big night, so I went hog-wild and drove into Bengo for some goodies. You guys just got lucky."

"Big night?" Angel asked, helping Xander open the package of bacon.

"If you guys don't crash before then, you're welcome to come along and find out." It was clear that that was all Xander was going to say on the subject, so everyone returned their attention to the tasks of making more coffee, helping with the food, or, in Illyria's case, listening attentively at the door.

"The females upstairs converse in a language other than your own. How do you communicate?" She asked.

"My Portuguese is decent, but my Bantu doesn't bear consideration. Sara does most of the translating, but her Portuguese is pretty rough on its own. Mostly we get by in French."

"Sara?" Willow accepted a whisk with a grin and turned to her task.

"One of my Slayers. She came with me from Zambia. Ducks is from Lunda Sul, to the East."

"Ducks?" Willow felt like she was stuck in repeat mode, but new-and-improved Xander was seriously weird.

"Other Slayer. Don't even ask what her real name is; I could probably get it out, but I'd have to lie down afterwards." Xander grinned, bright and happy.

"You with responsibility and all, Whelp. 'S beyond strange." Spike dodged the rubber-band that came flying his direction with a laugh.

That was, of course, the cue for two lanky teenagers to spill into the room. They pulled up short just inside the doorway and settled quickly into defensive positions, waiting for Xander's command. At his barked comment, however, they relaxed.

"Good morning." The eldest, Sara, spoke in stilted English. She nudged Ducks, who repeated the nicety.

Xander rattled off a long stream of French with interjections in a rougher, local dialect that had both of the girls nodding their heads and looking curiously at the intruders in their home. Finally, he pointed at each in turn and spoke their names, prompting waves, salutes, and nods.

"Would you guys mind eating in the living room? I need to talk to the girls and you're freaking them out." Xander shrugged apologetically, but the others made no protest as they left the room.

After a few minutes he brought in loaded plates, but left again with little more than a smile. Spike and Angel had draped themselves over the couch while Willow thumbed through the books on the table and Illyria bobbed around the room, poking through Xander's heavily laden shelves. They ate without speaking, and were barely finished when Sara ducked through the entryway and out onto the front porch, returning to the kitchen moments later bearing their bags. There was a dull thunking in the other room and some low murmurs punctuated with high-pitched hissing from one of the girls, but soon Xander re-appeared, flanked by his Slayer escort.

"Here ya go," he offered Spike the mug he held. "It's gonna taste kinda funky - I just dunked the bag in boiling water - but Dawn taught me ages ago that heating blood in a pan was a disgusting task. So this is the best you're gonna get until we reach someplace with a microwave."

"Thanks." Spike took the mug and stared at it. He sniffed, then took a drink. "A bit chemical, but not too bad. If it's a trouble, I can drink it cold."

"Can I just veto that on grounds of 'ew'?" Xander laughed. "Anyway. The girls have a run, then school, then they're going down to the clinic for first-aid training before tonight, so they've got to head out." He stood aside and let them come forward.

"Goodbye. It was... a pleasure to meet you." Sara stammered slightly, but got the words out.

Ducks was more curt. "Goodbye." She nodded sharply, then took Sara's elbow, grabbed her trainers from the jumble of shoes by the door, and left.

"Well," Xander spread his hands. "Apparently we've got some work to do on manners. Sorry, but she's not totally comfortable with strangers."

"Is there anything we can do?" Willow was still bouncing slightly where she leaned against the couch, but her movements were less manic than before.

"Unfortunately not. As far as I can tell, Ducks is better able to sense demons in the vicinity than any Slayer I've ever met. Buffy was always terrible at that, and Sara's not much better. Some of the other girls were pretty decent, but... Having you guys around is making her tense. She'll get better - she eventually got used to the Truddik down at the clinic - but it'll take a few days." Xander pushed at Willow's hip with her foot, scooting her along so she was pressed against Spike's legs, and collapsed to the floor against the arm of the couch.

"So, now that we've invaded your life, what're you gonna do with us?" Spike asked, toying with a strand of Willow's hair that was spread over his thigh.

"Unfortunately, you at least are stuck here for the day. I've got some errands to run this morning, and I thought I'd take Willow with me when I head to the clinic this afternoon, but I'd appreciate it if the rest of you could keep a low profile until I get a chance to let people know that you're staying with me." He knocked back his coffee and rose to his feet. "Sorry to bail on you so soon, but duty calls. I should be back with some lunch in a few hours - if you guys could keep looking for more information on any of the demons you found, that'd be great. Or you could crash upstairs, or there're some novels and comic books on that shelf. Just - make yourselves at home." With another hug for Willow and a nod to Spike, he was gone.

"I was only gone for a year; when the hell did he grow up?" Spike complained.


	6. Within the Constraints of the Dance

"So. What exactly was with your little performance earlier?" Xander had come home from at lunch to find most of his visitors passed out on the couch while Willow continued flipping through the rarer volumes he had in his collection, back pressed against Spike's legs as she sat in front of the couch. He and his best friend had spent the afternoon at the clinic, as planned, where he had introduced to her all of the people he had mentioned in his e-mails and she had gotten to know Sara and Ducks. It had been a slow day, with little work to do, so they had mostly sat on two of the empty beds and conversed torturously in slow English and rapid-fire French. When, a few hours later, they and the girls made their way back to the house so that Willow could take a shower and prepare for the upcoming 'big night,' it was to find Spike waiting on them. He had immediately risen from his position at the computer and beckoned Xander into the kitchen with a jerk of his head.

"Which performance? The dancing bear routine or the incredible mime act I pulled off while you all were asleep?" Xander joked.

Spike fixed him with a determined glare. "The 'we're all best buds and i don't mind that he's a vampire, really' performance." His imitation of Xander's accent caused the other man to suppress a chuckle.

"Honestly?" Xander turned his back, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and knocking it back. "I don't do much performing these days. What you see is what you get."

"Right. And you jumped on the Spike bandwagon when?" Spike's incredulity was evident.

"Did you spend all afternoon thinking about this?" Xander turned back around, raising an eyebrow at the suddenly discomfited vampire.

Spike shuffled his feet. "Well. Pretty much, yeah."

Xander grinned. "Neat." He tossed the now-empty bottle into a bin on the counter and his face settled into more serious lines. "I have to admit, all Spike bandwagon-jumpage happened after you and Anya died."

"Demon girl's dead?" Spike's surprise and dismay was obvious.

"Nobody told you?" Xander's face crumpled slightly, then firmed. "Died saving Andrew, back on the Hellmouth." The curtness of his tone told Spike that it was no time for apologies or reminiscence, so he quickly nodded his condolences and resumed his original topic.

"So in death, all sins are forgotten?" His smile was rueful as memories of his favorite ex-demon unwound in his mind. He was so caught up in the past that he was surprised by Xander's snort.

"Hardly. No. There was... a lot of talking. And a lot of objective assessment of past behavior in the absence of the irritating vampire we all thought we'd be glad to see the last of." He reached out and gripped Spike's shoulder. "Buffy told me what you did for her, after she came back. Before the end. And I'm grateful."

"What, that I took advantage of your best friend when she was feeling low?" Spike tried to jerk his shoulder out of the grip, but Xander wouldn't release him.

"No. That you talked to her, and listened to her, and just let her be - all of those things that the rest of us were too fucking self-absorbed to do." It was obvious from Xander's tone that there were still chasms in his psyche carved by self-recrimination and regret, but his eye was steady on Spike's face. "Not that I approve of the sexing, mind you - Buffy could spend the rest of her life in steel underwear and I'd still not be happy - but the friending, I am grateful for. I just wish we could have seen you when you were there."

Spike did slip free, this time, pulling himself around to face Xander dead on. "Back then, there wasn't much to see. I loved my girls, so I did what I could for them. Everyone else could've fallen straight into the Hellmouth, but for that it would affect 'em."

"And these days?"

"These days... I'd be slightly miffed if you fell in, Whelp. Especially since I went to all the trouble of closin' it in the first place." The grinned at each other, in perfect accord, until Willow walked into the room.

She looked from one to the other and shook her head. "Nuh-uh. Don't wanna know."

"You ready to go?" Xander asked, looping an arm around her neck.

"Where're we goin', then?" Spike looked past Willow and Xander to the empty living room. He could hear the Slayers moving around upstairs, giggling, but the heartbeats of the other two, asleep in Sara's bedroom, were slow and steady. "We're not gonna wake up Blue and Peaches?"

"Nah. Figured you two'd enjoy this more. And, well..."

"You don't really know them." Willow slipped her arm around his waist and squeezed. "It's okay."

Xander disentangled from her and slapped his hands together. "Right. Let's get going, then."

"Going where?" Spike's tone was growing more and more petulant. He and Willow had been trying to get answers from the boy all day, with no luck.

"You'll see when we get there." He led them out of the house and onto the shallow porch, where they were shaded from the last trickles of sunlight that were still being sucked back over the horizon. "It's just outside of town. And you'll have questions, I'm sure, but stay where I tell you and don't interfere, okay?"

"Um..." Willow sucked at her lower lip. "That's not filling me with confidence-y goodness, y'know."

"Have a little faith, hey?"

"Thought she was back in Cleveland."

Xander rolled his eyes at Spike, but smiled. "Believe it or not, I spent part of my day tellin' people that you weren't an asshole, Spike. Try not to prove me wrong."

Spike protested, but couldn't help the grin that carved its way across his face. This whole acceptance gig was something he had only just gotten used to in LA. Feeling it again, with the Scoobies he had long given up as a lost cause, filled him with decidedly non-evil warm bubblies that he wouldn't be caught undead telling anyone about. He bounced twice on his heels and followed Xander and Willow down the street.

The had only walked for a few minutes when Willow and Xander's mortal ears pricked at what Spike had picked up on back at the house. The low murmur of hushed conversation, punctuated by bursts of laughter and the tuning of unfamiliar instruments, washed over the still evening. When Xander led them around the building that held the local church, long since converted into a schoolhouse, the silver-toned shadows lifted to reveal a circle of sixty or so people standing within a slightly larger circle of tall torches. One end of the circle was marked by a group of musicians bearing painted gourds and long staves, now plucking or shaking out warm-up notes, and a tall man who stood just before them. Willow noticed a few people in the circle whom she had met earlier in the day, dark faces gilded with firelight and sheened with sweat. Most of them wore jeans and T-shirts or long, loose cotton tunics over wide-legged cotton pants or skirts.

They came to a halt in the shadow of the building, able to see everything but separate from the proceedings.

"What is it?" Spike asked, his voice carrying over the space between them and the others. He bounced on his toes, attempting to get a better view.

"Shut it!" Xander hissed, flicking at Spike's hand. "If you can't stand still you can go back to the house." Spike turned and glared at Xander, but quieted  
Willow tapped cautiously on Xander's shoulder. He flicked another quelling glare but softened when he saw it was her. "What?" He whispered.  
"What's going on?" She gestured towards the tall, thin man in the white smock who was standing to the edge of the circle and singing.

"That's the master; he's singing the litany... Um, a story-song. I can't understand all of it. In a minute, the musicians will start the corridos, and the fights will start."

"Fights?" She squeaked. Spike turned with renewed interest.

"Just watch, Wils." Xander returned his focus to the roda, while Spike and Willow exchanged curious glances behind his back.

After a few minutes, the tempo of the music changed and the master's voice dropped away. A low, slow beat began that was echoed back by the watchers, and soon the master began a new song. He trilled, and a tambourine scattered counterpoint notes to the steady throb. Two men stepped out of the circle and faced one another, smiling and nodding. The crowd began to clap in time to the music, and a few voices joined the master's.

The two men stood, splay-legged, but began tapping one foot back, then the other, marking out a triangle with their shifting weight. Spike watched Xander, who was leaning slightly forward and whose eye was bright. Suddenly the fight began, one of the men lashing out with a high kick that was fluidly avoided by a low, sweeping dodge, then returned. The first man jumped back and sideways before flipping backwards and resettling into the strange triangular bobbing motion. His opponent approached him, crouched low, and flashed a kick out that was easily avoided; the kick was a feint, as the man braced his weight on his palm and levered himself up onto his arm, kicking out with the other leg towards the man's stomach. The crowd hissed, but he pulled the kick back just before it impacted. Xander grinned and stepped forward, shaking his head when Spike and Willow moved to follow. He stepped into the roda, clapping along with the others. Ten minutes more, and the two men in the circle stepped apart and retreated back into the lines of onlookers. Their places were taken by two new men, one of whom was much older than the other. They began the strange bobbing dance and quickly began to fight. The younger man was strong and agile, but the older was whip-quick and always a step ahead of his opponent. While the one dashed out blows and launched himself from his hands to aim heavy kicks against his opponent, the other bobbed and wove around him, practically dancing between the strikes.

Another fifteen minutes and they too were done, and now Willow and Spike were watching just as avidly as the rest of the crowd. Another pair, this one a man and a woman, went through the same process, again never actually landing a blow. The tempo of the music had changed periodically, dipping from slow and steady to quick and upbeat, and the crowd's ululations and chanting changed with it. Now, however, the music skipped up to a nearly frenzied pace as a very young woman, dressed in black drawstring trousers and a sports bra, stepped forward. Willow looked for her opponent but saw nobody move - then she noticed. Xander was peeling out of his red T-Shirt and taking off his shoes. He stepped forward and bowed, and Willow hissed and grabbed Spike's hand, dragging him forward.

"That's Sara!" She hissed, and Spike nodded slowly, eyes fixed on the two in the circle.

"What the hell is the whelp doing fighting a Slayer?" He muttered, and Willow only shook her head, nails digging into Spike's palm.

The Slayer lashed out without warning, a deadly kick aimed at Xander's head, but Xander was already spinning on his back, pulling in his knees to smash his feet against Sara's thigh. She only just noticed the movement and flipped back and away, so Xander used his momentum to flip to his feet. Sara spun a kick at his midsection, but he danced back and began a cartwheel, kicking out in the middle to knock her leg aside. She grinned toothily, and Xander flipped back to his feet. Sara popped up into a handstand and scissored her legs at him, catching him around the shoulders, but Xander jerked sideways and brought them both spinning towards the ground; he landed heavily on his hands and toes, but she thumped to the earth. The crowd howled and the music picked up still further, the two fighters dodging and darting until Xander lunged at Sara and brought her crashing into the dirt.

Xander was sheened with sweat and now caked with dust, bright against the dark of his tanned skin. The firelight flickered and pulsed, and when he gained his feet and called for chamada, a ritual period where the teacher can explain to the student what is being done wrong, he looked like an ancient warrior-god leering at his foe. Sara gained unsteady feet and the two paced the length of the circle, talking in low voices. Then Xander signaled an end to the chamada, and immediately sprung at Sara. The girl only grinned and flipped him easily over her hip, and Xander sprung up laughing.

The two danced for almost half an hour, flipping and kicking and throwing each other. Willow asked Spike why they had so much more physical contact than the others, but Spike could only shrug, entranced by the patterns. Finally they broke apart, Xander gasping and Sara grinning, and they bowed again to one another. The master stepped forward and put a hand on Xander's shoulder to lead him away, and people broke from the roda to dance in the middle of the circle. Xander beckoned at his friends, and they walked towards him.

"What was that?" Willow demanded, hands on her hips. Xander laughed, dropping to the ground with his back to a tree. The master settled more gracefully beside him, and Spike took their cue, flopping elegantly to the ground.

"That was the capoeira. Sort of." Xander was sweating, and the master handed him a water bottle.

"What's a capa-whatzit?" Willow, too, sat, though not before making a moue of distaste at the thought of getting dust all over her jeans.

"It's a traditional fight-dance. I don't speak enough of anything to know all about it, but... basically, it's what you saw. Though this one was just a way to start the party. Anyway. It's kind of a martial-arts thing, y'know? Mostly foot-work, and lots of flipping."

"I hadn't noticed." Willow's voice was dry, and she flicked wondering eyes over her best friend's body. It hadn't been obvious from a distance, especially with the firelight flickering over him, but Xander was in better shape than she had ever seen him. Nothing of the pudgy carpenter about him now, nor even the swimmer he had been in school. He was long and lithe and dangerous looking.

"Like what you see?" He joked, poking at Willow with a toe. She stuck her tongue out at him. "This is Rob," he introduced the man at his side, who bowed his head slightly in their direction. "Well, he's Rob as much as Ducks is Ducks, but we get by."

Rob looked down his nose at Xander, then smiled and spoke in clipped, formal English. "After a fashion." He held out his hand to Willow. "How do you do?"

"Hey, I'm great. I'm also Willow. I mean, that's my name..." Willow stumbled to a halt, blushing. Xander patted her knee with his dirty foot, and she smiled ruefully at him and reached out to shake Rob's hand.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Willow. And you are?" He asked, extending his hand towards Spike.

"Sp... Will, Sir. Nice to meet you." Spike shook the hand quickly, dropping it as soon as he could. The man had strange magic and it tingled unpleasantly against his palm.

"You would be Spike, then." Rob grinned, teeth a white slash against the shadow of his face. "Xander has told me much of you."

Spike whipped around to glare at Xander, who only smirked. "I'm sure."

"Nothing too terrible, though I must say I am fairly surprised to see you, as I had last heard that you were quite thoroughly dead."

"For a bit, there, I thought so too." The two men looked at each other in ancient understanding, then turned to the others.

"So, whelp, what's with the whole taking on of the mini-Slayer?" Spike leaned back on his elbows and looked at Xander.

"And when did you learn how to fight like that?" Willow interjected.

"Easy, kids." Xander held up his hands. "Lessee. I started watching the fights as soon as I got here; stumbled across one in Marrakech - which is where I finally learned French - and got hooked. I watched for a couple of weeks, and started bringing my Slayer along." He settled himself more securely against the tree and resumed talking. "Most of the Slayers north of the Congo got picked up by the Council, but Shireen was only twelve or so; I found her pretty fast - she'd gotten a little gang together and was trying to keep some of the street kids safe. Anyway. She could only speak Arabic and a little French, so I was keeping her with me until things got settled with the new Council and she'd learned some English. In exchange, she decided that she'd teach me a little about fighting. We were sparring after one of the matches so she could try out some of the tricks she'd seen when one of the fighters ran into us. He invited us to a few matches and began giving Shireen pointers, and then he invited her into one of the games. Pretty soon after that Giles sent for her, but I kept a lookout for the capoeira wherever I went. Most places have some form of it, now, and I got pretty good. Whenever I pick up a Slayer I teach them; I'm nowhere near strong enough to spar with, but most of the girls need to learn restraint and some moves more than they need power or instincts."

Willow was staring at him. "Buffy said that some of the girls were teaching the others a different way to fight; she thought it was just a cultural thing."

Xander laughed. "Technically, Wils, it is."

"Okay," Spike drew the word out, calling their attention to him. "What I'm still not seeing is how you, the - no offense - bumbling boy-champion, just beat a Slayer."

"I didn't!" Xander protested, and took another swig from his water bottle.

Rob chuckled. "Yes, you did. Within the constraints of the dance, you are almost unparalleled."

Xander looked stunned, but quickly recovered. "Well, I watched Buff for years. Must've picked something up."

"Yeah," Spike muttered, shaking his head. "Must've."


	7. Two Eyes See Less

Willow was still bouncing when they got back to the house, riding high on a rush of adrenaline and magic. Spike, however, looked wasted. As soon as they got inside and Xander ushered the two Slayers upstairs to Ducks room, Spike bid them goodnight and followed the thrumming of Angel and Illyria's heartbeats upstairs to Sara's room. Illyria was alone in the single bed, covers stripped to make a pallet for Angel on the floor. Spike shook his head, smiling; the curtains were tightly closed, and the slits where the curtain-rod projected from the wall were covered with T-shirts scrounged from Sara's wardrobe.

Illyria rolled over, blinked at him, and mumbled a greeting before closing her eyes again. Though the God-King didn't need to sleep, Fred apparently demanded it, and the deity had been spending a little more of each night unconscious for the past few weeks. Spike slipped out of his clothes and dragged on a pair of Xander's sweatpants, borrowed for the purpose, and climbed into bed.

Downstairs, Willow and Xander were facing each other over the kitchen table.

"You ready for bed?" Xander asked, smirking at the twitches at the corners of Willow's mouth that could easily build into either yawns or giggles.

"Nope. You?"

"Not particularly."

"Wanna talk?"

"That was the plan."

"Ooh! A plan! I like those."

"Sure you do." Xander grinned and rose, stretching up to snag a slightly dusty bottle of merlot from the top of the cabinets. "Giles sent this down a few months ago; wanna drag out the sofa bed and have a drink?"

"Xander Harris! Are you trying to seduce me?" She glared at him, but the twitches betrayed her and her laughter bubbled up.

"Always, baby." He leered and led the way into the other room.

When the bed was out and they had slipped into their sleeping attire and under the covers, Willow grabbed the bottle away from Xander and magicked the cork out before taking a swig.

"Handy," he murmured.

"Less likely to spill on the sheets. So," she scrunched a pillow behind her and leaned back against the sofa. "Do you always wear your eyepatch to bed?"

Xander fingered the offending article. "Nope. Girls are used to it, and it itches if I leave it on to long."

"Well, then." As if that settled everything. Which Xander supposed it did, since he found himself dropping the patch onto the coffee table, now pushed to the side of the sofa, before he thought. He turned back, awkward, and attempted to smile.

"Well?" He asked.

Willow handed him the wine and got to her knees. Leaning forward, she took his face into her hands and stared at him. "Yup. Still pretty."

"That twittering? That was the sound of my masculinity flying away." He laughed, though, and drank.

"Hush, you. Anyway. It's really not bad. I dunno what I was expecting, after the bandages and all. Maybe a scar..."

"Those were to keep my head in place, best I can figure. All the damage was on the inside. And no, you can't see." Willow pouted. "Really, Wils. It's gross, it hurts sometimes, but it's just a hole."

She reached up and feathered fingers over his cheekbone, just beneath where thick lashes marked the start of unnaturally flat skin. "I know you don't want a replacement, or want it fixed. Is there a reason?" He tensed, and she hurried to reassure him. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I just... want to know."

Xander took another long pull of the wine and passed the bottle back to Willow. "Good stuff. Not that I'd know, I guess. But it's not bad." When Willow fastened a mock glare on him, he sighed and acquiesced. "Giles thinks it's some sort of atonement. Buffy thinks it's a creepy memorial." Willow nodded; she had heard both ideas before. "It's just... part of who I am. A reminder of who I've lost, yeah, and a reminder to be careful, but... Has Buffy told you about the Slayer dreams?"

Willow nodded. "A bunch of the girls have them, I guess."

"They're supposed to be prophetic. And other places, that's all they are. But here - in Africa - they're something different." He sighed. "You know I have the best acquisition record for Slayers? Twelve of fourteen active girls, between the ages of twelve and twenty-five, who were willing to come with me. Most of us are lucky to get fifty percent, and they go after the kids and the women too."

"You don't?" Willow hadn't really heard much about the kind of work Xander was doing. She knew in vague terms, of course, but the specifics had never seemed to matter.

"You mentioned earlier that you can do more magic with less power, here." Willow shrugged and nodded. "Wils, the power here is old. This is where the Slayer line began, and the people here know that. A lot of the Slayers I come across are really young or already settled down, and all I have to do is stick around long enough to explain what happened, what's going to happen, and hand over a satphone so that they can get in touch with the Council if something comes up. Most of them already have support systems built in, ones that believe in magic and demons and are willing to help their Slayers however they can. An entire continent of Scoobies." He grinned. "Giles is pissed 'cause I've been passing out phones like candy, but I keep trying to explain that it's cheaper than training a four-year-old. He's still not buying it - guess he can't cope with practicality from this particular direction."

Willow sat for a moment, drinking and processing. "What does that have to do with your eye and the Slayer dreams?"

Xander laughed. "Lost the plot, didn't I? Well... The girls here have prophetic dreams, yeah, but... I guess it's because they're so much closer to the source, or because there's so much power here. They dream about me." Willow hit him with a pillow. "I'm serious," he laughed. "Every Slayer dreams about the ones who came before, but these girls dream about Buffy, and Faith, and the rest of us. Susie, an older Slayer who brought Sara to me, even dreamt about Spike. I thought she was loco, of course, but not so much. Anyway. After six months, when my socket healed, Giles dragged me up to Spain where I got a temporary prosthetic eye. First Slayer I came across, back in Cameroon, walked straight up to my jeep and smacked me upside the head. After the birdies went away, I got all testy, but she calmed me down pretty quick." He paused.

"How?" Willow asked, the perfect audience. Her eyes were wide and her lips stained purple-red from the wine. He snagged the bottle back and took a drink.

"Did what you just did, touched just below my eye, and told me that it wasn't who I was. Two eyes see less. So I stopped off at my hotel, popped the eye out, and went to meet her folks. Never thought about changing my mind."

Willow hmmed and smiled at him, then changed the subject. The two of them talked long into the night, about the things they'd done, the people they'd met, their responsibilities to the Council, Willow's breakup, Spike and Angel and Illyria... They finally fell asleep, empty wine bottle shoved down the side of the sofa, Willow's head on Xander's shoulder.

)))

"Oh, god." Xander stumbled, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen. Angel and Spike turned to him with a smirk, though Willow's blood-shot eyes could barely focus on him.

"Hard night, pet?" Spike's smirk grew into a full grin when Xander growled at him. Xander rubbed his hands over his face, swearing when he realized he had forgotten to put on his eye-patch.

"Don't worry about it. Nothing shameful in a scar like that." Angel rose and began running the espresso machine. Xander groped his way to the table and practically collapsed into the empty chair.

"Somebody decide I needed a good trepanning last night?" He ran wary fingers over his skull.

"Nope. 'Sall there, mate." Spike blew a thick stream of cigarette smoke at Angel, who was bringing over a glass of water and a tiny cup of caffeinated goodness. Xander accepted both with a grateful moan.

Willow looked at her own empty cup, then glanced covetously at Xander's. "More?" She pleaded, but Angel just shook his head. Yesterday's chipper-fest had taught him a lesson, and he had cut her off at two. She grumped at him for a minute then refixed her sticky eyes on Xander. "How d'you know what trepanning is?" She hadn't intended to be dismissive, but Xander hunched over his coffee. Spike growled and they both looked at him.

"Way to make the boy feel special, Red."

Willow winced. "Sorry, Xan. Didn't mean it like that."

Xander uncoiled a little and waved a hand airily. "No problem." He knocked back his espresso and made a face - Angel still hadn't mastered proportions. "Helped with a few."

Everyone at the table ran the conversation back for a moment, trying to pinpoint what he was talking about. Angel got it first. "What? Really? Why?"

"Best way to find Slayers is to hook up with the local medical corps. Some of the tribes cloak themselves as a matter of course, so magic doesn't always work. But most Slayers do a lot of damage before they figure out what's going on, so I volunteer to help out and I always get a heads-up when there's a rumor of a girl with super-strength."

"And this results in you boring holes into people's heads?" Willow's voice was incredulous.

Xander shrugged. "Sometimes."

The awkward atmosphere in the room was disrupted when Illyria walked in the side door, almost flash-frying Spike in the process. "Dammit, Blue, watch the sunlight!"

She frowned. "Apologies."

"'Sno matter." He smacked at the curls of smoke rising off his shoulders.

"Been exploring?" Illyria was dressed as Fred, in jeans and a T-shirt, with only blue hair and blue eyes to mark her as inhuman.

She nodded at Xander. "I returned to the cave where we dispatched the Uvumi the other night. All evidence of their habitation is gone."

Willow's headache faded away. "What?"

"That's... strange. Was there anyone else around? That night, or today?" Xander drummed his fingers against the ridge of his cheekbone, sending shadows flickering over the dark skin of his empty eyelid.

"No. I could find no tracks other than our own."

Xander hummed under his breath; Angel turned to Willow. "Can you go out, see if you can find anything?" Willow nodded. "Then let's go."

"Clothes, first, perhaps?" Willow grinned. Angel looked down at his boxer-clad body and flushed, which was a strange look for the long-pale man.

"Perhaps."

)))

The sun was high overhead by the time Willow and Angel made their way back to the cave. Angel scouted the area carefully but, as Illyria had told them, could find no sign of other humans or demons. Even Willow, feeling around her for the influence of magic, noted nothing.

That changed once they followed the long tunnel down to the cavern where they had fought.

Willow had been experimenting with portals for the past year, absorbing Dawn's nearly instantaneously-replenishing energy and using it to teleport herself, to craft gateways to other dimensions, and to close same. It had been the brief burst of power that she had taken at their parting that had allowed her to teleport to LA without depleting herself, and to close the portal through which the demon army had emerged. After such frequent exposure, the signature of that particular type of magic was as familiar as the basic levitation she had mastered in high school. And it was everywhere.

"Angel!" With a twist of power, she pulled him away from a swelling in the shimmering lattice-work of not-yet-complete spellwork. He grunted as he stumbled, but maintained his feet.

"What was that?" He protested, still scanning the interior of the cave.

"We have to get out of here. The magic is unstable!" Even as she spoke, the swelling energy pulsed towards her and the spell she had crafted to light her way. The two slammed together with an explosion of sparks that blew her backwards; it was only a matter of luck that Angel was close enough to catch her before she collided with the rough cavern wall.

Angel settled the unconscious witch over his shoulder and sped from the now-darkened cavern, away from threats he could not see and could not fight. When he finally made his way back into daylight, mere minutes after their initial entry, he swung Willow down to the ground and began checking her over for injury. She seemed unharmed, but for the staccato thread of her pulse and the bright sheen of blood on her upper lip. With a curse, he gathered her into his arms and began the trek towards Xander's.

Willow roused herself before they were there, but seemed content to cling weakly to Angel's neck as he continued loping towards the house. His arms were tiring; he still found the limits of his mortal body to be unexpectedly close. By the time they reached the porch and Spike opened the door at the scent of Willow's blood, he was happy to be able to settle her on the couch.

"What the hell happened?" Xander demanded, bustling in from the kitchen with a first aid kit in hand.

"Dunno. She jerked me out of the way of something I couldn't see and said that the magicks were unstable. Then there was an explosion and her light went out. I caught her, though, so I don't think she's injured. It's just the spell." Angel was jittering, sliding his hands into and out of his pockets, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, and reaching out in aborted attempts to touch Willow's hair.

"I'm fine, Xander, Angel." Willow's voice was croaky, but firm, and Angel sighed to hear her pulse even out. "Somebody's been creating portals in there, and not well. I'm guessing that that's how the Uvumi got there in the first place." She coughed, and Spike went to fetch her a bottle of water. "I could see the shadows of the older spell, and it was all neat and tidy. Whoever did it this time wasn't as strong or as good; the spell left a lot of residue that was still active."

"What blew up?" Spike asked, handing over the water.

She took a long drink and let Xander clean the rest of the blood from her nose before answering. "I'm not really sure. The energy left in the room was still active, somehow, and reacted with the light spell I was using."

Illyria had returned from wherever she had been, and interrupted. "How? The magicks that you use and those necessary to create portals should not interact, and certainly not so violently."

Willow shrugged. "I've got some residual portal-making goodness left over from the battle, I guess. And since the energy I used to cast my spell is running around in the same circles, it must've blended or something. I don't really know."

Xander looked at her sideways. "Portal-making goodness?"

"I used some of Dawn's energy - don't growl at me, Spike! She's got a universe worth in there - to get me to LA with enough power left to fight. But since I had to process it before I could use it, it got all mixy with the usual mojo."

"Did Dawn know about this?" Spike really was growling.

"Of course!" She turned to him, wide-eyed. "We've been trading off - she teaches me how to open portals, I teach her to process magic."

"What's this whole processing thing?" Xander asked. "I always thought you just... used it."

"That would be evil Willow." She sighed.

"So what's the difference?" Angel asked. "I mean, between good Willow magic and evil Willow magic?"

"And can you be sure that what you're getting Niblet into is one and not the other?" Spike raised a pointed eyebrow.

"The magicks just feel different. I could tell when I cast spells with Tara," and she cast a sharp look at Xander, who let Spike snicker in his stead, "that what she was doing wasn't the same. I thought that it had something to do with her. Or maybe I, in my pride, thought that she was weaker. The energy isn't the same; I'm not naturally a very strong witch, you know." She grinned sheepishly at her folded hands. "I'm smart, though, and there are shortcuts all throughout spells and summonings. It's like code. A few strong witches figured out a handful of spells, and those have been cut apart and put into other places - using the same spells takes less willpower, because they've been done over and over and have worn a groove, of sorts, into the aether."

"Aether?" Xander leaned over and took back the empty water bottle before helping her right herself on the sofa.

"Kind of... The invisible, untouchable substance, the mystical energy, through which magic is channeled. It's everywhere, and tied into every thing, just a giant web that can be manipulated. And a spell... this metaphor's about to get a little meta, but work with me." Everyone nodded, transfixed. "A spell is like a drop of water on that web, and it obeys gravity and slides along the strands. The same spell, over again, lands in the same place on the web as the first, and it follows the residue of the first drop, which slicks over the imperfections in the strand and provides easier passage. In the beginning, different spells can go to the same place, but eventually, it's easier and takes less time to get just follow the old paths. With me?" Again, everyone nodded. "So, then, back to the computer stuff. Big spells are composites of small spells, usually, designed to call upon certain forces in a certain order to achieve a certain objective. Like snipping code from a dozen different programs to create something new. But lots of times, there's waste code that had a purpose in the original program but isn't being utilized. That waste still demands an input of energy to process - to make the spell work. If I go through and cut out the waste, then the code still runs and the program works, but it does so more efficiently. If I do the same with a spell, then it requires less innate power. Because, however - and here's where I go back to the spiderweb thing - there isn't any pre-worn course for the new spell, I have to do the work of smoothing out the strand so the drop can progress. But that requires resolve more than talent, and that I can do." She smirked at Xander, who grinned back at her.

"That was a reasonably concise and appropriate explanation." Illyria cocked her head, bemused. "But I have seen you fight, and you are strong."

Willow shrugged. "That's the tricky part. When I first started doing magic - when I re-ensoulled Angel - the curse itself provided the impetus necessary for the spell, and just sucked the energy out of me. Probably out of some of the people at the hospital, too, because I just didn't have enough on my own." Angel's head snapped up, staring at her.

"Would it have affected anyone adversely?" He asked, eyes shadowed.

"It probably made a few people a bit weaker, but I was in a recovery ward. Nobody died that day. Well. Except you." She ducked her head, but he nodded.

"So what changed, then? With your magic, I mean?" Spike was leaning forward, almost anxious to hear more.

"Heh. That's the problem. Nothing did." She shrugged. "The curse was a bad influence on me. It opened my power up to me, so I could access it, but it also taught me how to suck power out of other things. And not in a good way."

"There's a good way?" Spike asked, bemused.

"If I tap into the aether itself, the air around the web, then I can use that. But I have to accumulate it slowly, process it, because anything I want to use it on is part of the web. I transmute the power, and can use it then. What I used to do was sap the power out of the web itself. You remember, Xan, when I drained the books at The Magic Box? When I drained Giles?" She was tearing up a bit, but Xander had wrapped his hand around the crook of her elbow and Spike pressed his shoulder against hers. She looked to him for confirmation, and his steady gaze gave her courage to continue. "It's inherently dark, what I was doing. The power I drew from the web was stronger than the power I use now, more readily accessible, but it was a violation of everything I drained. It was rape." Spike jolted at that, and Angel turned speculative eyes on Illyria, violation of Fred, but said nothing. Xander got up from his seat and dropped to his knees beside Willow, drawing her against him, soothing her as she cried.

"I... had not thought of that." Illyria's eyes were flashing wildly, blue to brown to blue. She pushed away from the wall. Angel expected her to leave, but she thrust Spike aside and squatted beside Willow instead. "Hush, girl, and listen to me." The command in her tone caused Willow to snap around, though Xander's eye darkened with anger.

"Every being you have traveled with - and befriended, I think - over the past few weeks is guilty of a similar violation." Spike dropped his head into his hands but Illyria's hand flashed backwards and cuffed him sharply over the head. "Not that, fool."

"You told her?" Xander asked, quietly.

"Told Fred," Spike replied, voice shaky.

"Told Fred what?" Angel interjected, suddenly feeling left out.

"None of your business, Deadboy." Xander barked at him, and Spike offered a rueful, grateful smile. Xander nodded sharply, then gestured for Illyria to continue.

She reached up and cupped Willow's face, eyes and hair reverting to brown, skin smoothing from mottled blue to cream. "A vampire is a demon who violates a human host, stripping the shell of its soul and making casual use of what is left. Sometimes more is left than others. I," and her features again hardened into Illyria's, "raped and dismissed Winnifred Burkle when I sought, not only to strip this shell of its soul, but to eradicate it. I can only be grateful that I was not successful." She smoothed blue-tipped fingers over Willow's cheekbones, wiping away tears, maintaining painful eye-contact. "We are not justified in our behavior, and should never forget our wrongs, but Angel is living, breathing proof that, in spite of our sins, we can be redeemed."

Angel left the room.

The stunned silence that followed the unnaturally empathic behavior of the god and Angel's subsequent departure lasted for long minutes, until Spike shook himself and turned a gimlet glare on Willow. "So you said you have to take power slowly, process it before you can use it, for it to be good?"

She nodded.

"But you took the Bit's all in a rush?" His voice was heavy with accusation, and Willow shuddered her rebuttal.

"No! Not like that!" She reached out and gripped his hand. "Dawnie's made of power, this giant self-replenishing neon green artesian well of portal-y energy. Part of what we've been working on is a way for her to section off some of that power, without making it part of her physical form. Like... tapping into the source of herself and sticking some of it in a bag. So when I told her I was leaving, she just handed that bag over to me - metaphorically speaking - and I could absorb it almost immediately. Because she was holding it for me, she'd already done most of the transformative work necessary." She sighed. "Really, it's this big long thing with meditation and herbs and buckets of crystals and Giles polishing his glasses and Andrew squeaking about folding space resulting in temporal collapse, but the end of it is, I can use Dawn's power right off because she gives it to me. I don't take it."

Spike looked her over for a long moment before nodding sharply. "We should get on with the research, then. I'm thinking that whatever's taken to popping extra-dimensional warriors in and out of Angola isn't a fellow I'd like to meet."

Xander stood up, knees cracking as he unfolded from his position on the floor. "I'm thinking we should call Giles."

Heads snapped around and Spike glared; Angel, making his way back into the room with slightly swollen eyelids, barked out a rejection.

"Look, guys. I've got your basic demon compendia, a handful of texts on African magic, and some Slayer stuff. I don't have anything on dimensional portals, and the only reason I found those Uvumi was because somebody in the Council posted the information on the internet. They're my go-to guys in things like this. Now, I can keep information about Spike and Angel to a minimum, if you want, but I really think I need to talk to Giles about the rest of this. If something bad's gonna happen, it's my responsibility to take care of it." He stood poised, waiting.

Willow was the first to nod, followed by Angel. Spike and Illyria exchanged a long glance before adding their assent.

)))

By the time Xander managed to reach Giles, Willow had crafted a projection spell that would allow anyone within the kitchen to hear what was said. Though she, Illyria, Angel and Spike were gathered around the small table, Xander bade them all wait and took the satphone outside for the more private part of the conversation.

He waited through the interminable period of musak before Giles' personal assistant put him through.

"Rupert Giles," the familiar voice caused Xander's tense muscles to spontaneously relax, and he slumped back against the wall of the house.

"Giles, it's me."

"Xander! It's excellent to hear from you. How are the girls?" Xander mused, almost bitterly, that Giles sounded happy. Not like the world had almost ended yet again.

"They're good. Almost ready to join the academy, I think. They're having a hard time getting used to a vampire in the house, though." Nothing like allusions and evasions to start a blunt conversation off right.

"They're what?" Giles' shout was loud enough that Spike started smirking in the other room.

"Wils came here for some down-time after the fight; thought for some reason she and her friends wouldn't be welcome in London. Any ideas why?"

"Xander, do you mean to tell me that she has brought Angel to you?" Xander rolled his eyes at the accusatory tone.

"And Spike. Thanks for the spillage on that particular bit of gossip, by the way." Xander huffed. "Does Buffy know?"

"Andrew told her, once he heard about what happened in LA. Xander, what did happen?"

"There were monsters, magic, and swords. Dead people, dead demons. The good guys won." He bit off every sentence, acid in his tone. "If Willow hadn't shown, they would've lost."

"We can't know that, Xander."

"We can and we do. This placation thingy you've got going on really isn't going to cut it, but it's also very much not the issue. We've got problems, here, Giles. Possibly big ones."

"What kind?" There was the rustle of a notebook and pen being readied.

"Inter-dimensional portals and the demons that love them. Apparently the LA crew did a little clean-up on some guys that aren't from around here, then when they went back during the day, they found that all of the bodies had been chucked through a portal."

"Good lord." Giles sighed. "I assume you would like me to fetch Buffy?"

"She's there?" Xander raised an eyebrow.

"Since she heard about Spike."

"Yeah. Get her, then. I'll put Spike on the line. But tell them to keep it short, 'cause we need to get down to business."

Giles sighed and agreed, then there was a clunk as the phone hit the desk. Xander went back inside.

Spike was sitting at attention at the small table, a half-smile curling his lips. "When'd you grow stones, whelp?"

"There was a body-part exchange."

"Ew!" Willow stuck her tongue out at him, and Spike chuckled.

"Anyway. Buffy's coming on the line, but keep it -"

"Short, yeah. I heard." Spike took the phone and made his way into the living room. After a minute, the low murmur of his greeting wafted back into the kitchen. He only spoke for a few minutes, during which Willow kept casting worried looks at Angel's ramrod posture and Xander fielded a handful of Illyria's questions on the way he trained Slayers, before returning, his face purposefully set.

"We're ready," he said, and set the phone in the center of the table. Willow lit the small candle she had set beside it, and suddenly the crackle of magic and inter-continental phone conversations filled the room.

"Giles, you there?" She called.

"Yes, just a minute. I'm sure there's a button for speaker-phone on here somewhere..." There were some metallic clicks, Buffy's more feminine grumble, and then the background noise clarified.

"Hey, Wils, you there?" Buffy called.

"Yup. Hey, Buff. How're you doing?"

"Peachy by comparison. Heard some strange things about you, recently. But Giles tells me you've got some space invader thing going on?"

Willow rolled her eyes at Buffy's idea of a summary, but began relating the discoveries of the past few days. The scratching of pens and the occasional sounds of typing, punctuated by Buffy's disgusted groan when Giles brought up the on-line image of the Uvumi, was background to the story. The participants alternated in relating the information, and Giles found it necessary to ask few questions. Finally, the tale was complete.

"Xander, have you encountered anything else unusual recently?" Giles asked.

"Patrols around here are usually pretty quiet, you know that. The girls have been having some pretty funky dreams, though. Lots of green light and fire. I'm guessing, since Dawn's all with the green glow, that they've been getting hints of this portal stuff."

"You didn't tell us that!" Willow protested.

"I am now," he retorted. Before the argument could devolve, however, Buffy stepped in.

"I haven't heard anything about the girls here dreaming stuff like that."

"Well, I'm thinking the dreams are pretty location-specific. I mean, you always dreamt about what was going to happen to or near you, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"So I'm thinking that I get ahold of the Slayers I left in situ, see who else is having the funky green dreams, maybe find out how far-reaching this thing is gonna be. Get them all ready to ride to the rescue if Giles comes through with the info."

"That's remarkably well thought out."

"Not just a pretty face, here." Xander laughed and Buffy giggled.

"I suggest, then, that we each turn to our current tasks. Thank you for informing us, and I'll get as many researchers on this as I can spare." It was obvious he was prepared to end the conversation, but Xander exchanged a quick look with Angel and, at his nod, broke in.

"Wait!"

"What is it, Xander?"

"Got even more news for you, Giles." Xander's voice took on an extra edge of pep that had Giles audibly cringing from thousands of miles away.

"Please, do tell."

"Angel's alive."

Silence.

Then, "Yes, so we presumed."

Buffy's voice was shaky as it crackled through the speaker-phone. "Alive alive?"

"Good lord, he's human?" Willow snickered at the rustle of fabric that inarguably marked Giles' preferred method of distancing himself from a situation. Spike confirmed it when he heard the subtle squeak of linen against glass.

"Not so much," Xander answered, "but big on the breathing, pulsing, and walking in sunlight."

"How?" Buffy's voice was tiny.

"There was a shoeless prophecy."

"Shanshu," Willow interjected.

"Yeah, that. Apparently, Soul Boy here was a contender for mortality, as long as he fought in a particular apocalypse." Xander shrugged.

There was silence on the other end of the line; just as Giles drew breath to speak again, Angel interrupted.

"It was supposed to be Spike."

"Huh?" Suddenly, he was the focus of all attention.

"Look, Peaches, you and I both know that that little duel for the Dew we had didn't decide anything. You've been rushin' around saving damsels like Dudley bloody Do-Right a helluva lot longer than me." Spike cocked an eyebrow at him in quiet scorn.

"Not that." Angel sighed, steeling himself for the upcoming admission - one that had had him confused since he drew his first, necessary breath back in LA. "Look, Giles. The Shanshu prophecy was part of the Scrolls of Aberjian. As part of my initiation into the Circle of the Black Thorn, I signed them away, in my blood, on the original document."

"And?" Giles' voice was confused.

"And? What do you think, and? I signed the prophecy away! So why the hell didn't it go to Spike?"

"And make that expression number six for the Brooding One," Xander muttered, eyes trained on the angry, tense face of the former vampire. Spike smirked but Willow poked him in the side. Angel just scowled at him and turned his attention back to the satphone.

"Willow, you know the answer to this. Why didn't you tell him?" Giles sounded vaguely exasperated, now, and Buffy's breathing was light and fast-paced.

"Could be, Watcher, 'cause she didn't rightly know. Poofter here's not been very forthcoming with the information, it seems." Spike grinned. "But that's not particularly - " He was cut off.

"Angel, you can't just sign away a prophecy." Buffy's voice was tight. "They're not declarations that something's gonna happen; they're just testaments to something that someone has seen is gonna happen. Like Cordy's visions, but long-range."

"Exactly, Buffy. And while the infallibility of prophecy as a whole has long been called into question, the fault is always found with the Seer, and not with the events that they relate." Giles sighed. "I would assume that the ritual by which you allegedly signed over your rights to the fulfillment of this particular prophecy was more to do with seeing if you would still fight without hope of redemption than anything."

"I mean, there was a mechanism for the change, right? It wasn't just, like, a blast of heavenly light or anything?" Buffy asked. Spike and Angel exchanged glances. Hearing the pretty little SoCal blonde ask the right questions, even if her phrasing was sometimes dubious, was unexpected.

"It was my doing." Illyria spoke for the first time during the conversation.

"Who is this?" Giles demanded.

"I used to be the human female that you refused to save. Now I am the god that inhabits her body." Everyone around the table flinched, and there was an audible echo as Giles dropped his glasses.

"The human female you what?" Buffy screeched. Giles murmured something placating and she subsided with a rumble.

"Miss Burkle, I presume?"

"Illyria, God-King of the Primordium. Fred's just in there on a time-share." Spike's voice was dry, but the glare he leveled at the phone was incendiary. Willow started to press soothing circles into the skin of his back while Xander stood and fetched him a water bottle. Spike accepted it with a nodded thanks and gave a tight smile to Willow, but none of the tension left his body.

"That's all very well, but what has this to do with Angel's mortality?" Giles' blatant attempts at evasion riled Spike even further.

"There will be a discussion on your passive aggressive tendencies, you uptight prig - " This time it was Buffy who cut him off.

"Giles. What. The hell. Happened." It had taken months to rebuild even a modicum of true trust between the Slayer and her Watcher after he had stepped aside to allow Wood his assassination attempt, and Xander and Willow winced as they heard it crumbling back away.

Giles sighed. "Angel, working for Wolfram & Hart, contacted me about one of his employees, a Miss Winnifred Burkle, who had -"

"Fred!?" Buffy yelped. "You killed Fred?"

"You knew Fred?"

"She's worked for Angel ever since he got her out of that Demon Dimension, Giles. The physicist? Willow talked about her for absolutely ever when she got back from re-good-ifying Angel the last time."

"Re-good-ifying?" Angel mouthed, amused in spite of himself.

"Oh." Again, the squeak of cloth on glass. "Oh dear."

"Think that deserves a 'bloody, buggerin' hell', myself," Spike grumbled.

"Quite."

"So what the hell happened?" Buffy demanded. Everyone in the kitchen jumped, and it was obvious she had the same affect on Giles.

"Well, he was attempting to reach Willow, but she was out of contact at the time,"

"In the Himalayas, you said," Angel broke in.

"Indeed. I'm afraid that, between Angel's place of employment and the rumors of his disreputable behavior in the name of said firm, I felt it necessary to disregard his request for assistance."

"Y'know, Giles," and Buffy's voice was incredibly, excruciatingly cold, "the more wrong you know you are, the stiffer you get. And right now? You're about three words from shattering."

Giles' sudden sigh was unexpected, an acknowlegment of defeat. "As usual, you're right. I behaved wrongly, was judgmental and vindictive, and an innocent suffered." His voice grew louder, as if he had turned to face the speaker-phone. "I have been trying, ever since I heard about the goings-on in LA, to hold tight to my belief that you had been indelibly corrupted, Angel. Without that belief, many of my actions over the last year are called into question, and I have never been one for confronting my personal demons. The harm that has been caused you and yours, as a result of my blindness, grieves me, and I apologize for my actions."

Angel and Spike recoiled from the phone as if they had been bitten. Long, silent moments passed before Spike spoke. "Buffy?"

"Yeah?"

"Any signs the Watcher's been possessed?" His question had Xander snorting and Willow rolling her eyes, while Illyria just reached out and gripped Angel's shoulder.

"Besides that little speech?" She paused for a minute, and Giles' muffled protest at whatever she was doing caused more than one smirk. "Nope. Think he's the real deal."

Giles huffed. "I am a grown man, I'll remind you, and am willing to hold myself accountable for my own actions."

"Since when?" Everyone turned to Xander in varied stages of disbelief. That particular protest from that particular mouth was almost disturbing in its unexpectedness.

"Xander," Willow hissed.

"No, Wils. I mean, he's all about the good fight, we know that. And he's great at helping us with our - well, Buffy's - problems. But this is the first time I've ever really seen him take any blame for something that was entirely his doing. It's a good thing." He turned to the phone. "Congrats, Giles. You've finally grown up."

Giles was sputtering as Xander disconnected the call.


	8. The Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This particular interlude doesn't progress the plot whatsoever. I was going to leave the contents up to the reader's imagination, but caught all kinds of flak for that plan, so here you have it:

"Hello?" The Slayer's voice was timid, and Spike found himself smiling.

"Buffy, pet?"

"Spike! Oh, god, Spike. It's you?"

"'S me, kitten. Hear Junior Watcher spilled the beans." His hands were twitching, begging for touch.

"Yeah. Giles went into fits when Willow pulled her disappearing act and called Andrew; Dawn was home and saw the wiggage. She pulled the story out of him, spazzed like a pro, and called me. Faith was bringing some newbies up to the academy anyway, so I stuck her in charge for a bit and came back." There was a pause that Spike didn't dare to interrupt. "Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" She sounded so small... Spike sighed.

"Wanted to. I was all ghostie when I showed up, though, and nobody'd dial the phone for me. Then... Things happened. Angel needed me, pet, and it was a good feeling."

"What if I needed you?"

"Did you? Really?" He wasn't quite scornful, but less than enthusiastic.

Buffy sighed. "No. But god, I missed you. Life's so much easier without you around, y'know?"

Spike scowled at the phone.

"Quit that!"

He snickered. "You're scary, Slayer."

Her grin was clear in her voice. "You betcha. No, but really, Spike. Life's simpler these days. Like it's all been pared down, and all I have to do is fight the bad guys, love my friends, and teach hormonal superheroes where the heart is. Which sounds like a really, really bad soap opera. But anyway. I remember what you said to me, Spike. And... Even though I hate that you didn't come to me, or let me know you were around - and yup, there's been some serious yelling that you were lucky enough to have missed - I'm kinda glad that I had this past year. Remember when Giles left, after Willow brought me back?"

Spike murmured his assent, old curses and worn-out pain flashing behind his eyes.

"Well, this whole living thing's like learning to ride a bike. When he left, it was like he took my training wheels away and all I could do was hope the crash didn't kill me. When you died, it was like... Even though I missed you so much, I was finally riding on my own, y'know? Just... I was in control. Part of it felt good, knowing that I could take care of myself. And now you're back, and I don't need you to hold me steady anymore."

Spike sank onto the couch. "What're you saying, Slayer? Spell it out for the dumb vamp."

The bitterness in his voice was rich, and Buffy jumped to remedy his misapprehension. "Not that, you idiot! Just that, well, instead of holding me up, you can ride along beside me."

The smile was slowly working its way back onto Spike's face, even in the face of Buffy's somewhat skewed metaphors. "Really, luv?"

"Really. And I really, really missed you. Now get everyone on the phone so we can deal with this whoziwhatzit and I can see you again!"

They laughed, and Spike found himself almost caressing the phone. "Yeah. Gimme a second."


	9. War Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Though there is a Bela Vista in Bengo, it's actually on the coast. Since I didn't want to have to deal with an actual city for this story, I appropriated the name and shifted it inland. Sorry to anyone with any knowledge of actual Angolan geography!

Xander spent almost a week trying to figure out how to get information without dealing with having alienated his sole source. Finally it was decided that, in an attempt to avoid all points of testiness, Willow would call Buffy.

Though the call was private, rather than the teleconference of the previous attempt, the African contingent of the Scooby Gang trickled slowly into the kitchen throughout the long conversation. By the time Willow hung up, a stack of scribbled-upon looseleaf paper in front of her, even Illyria had come to see what was going on.

"So, what's the what?" Xander turned the top page towards him, trying to decipher Willow's sketches and shorthand, but she smacked his hand away.

"First off, you made Giles cry."

"I what?" Xander's face dropped with shock and dismay, and even Spike couldn't resist a flinch.

"Joking, geeze. But he is pretty upset. Although, not so much with you." Willow shrugged.

"With who, then?" Angel asked.

"Himself, mostly. I dunno. Sounds like Buffy gave him a pretty thorough going over after we hung up."

"After Harris hung up, y'mean. God, but that was good." Spike's grin was huge.

"Yeah, yeah," Xander gave a little half-bow and snickered. "But not the point. Buff got any ideas about these demons of ours?"

Willow nodded and gestured Xander to the seat across from her with one hand, ordering her notes with the other. "Yeah. It actually looks like this ties in with Angel's little snafu in LA."

"Pretty big coincidence," Angel interjected.

"Not as big as you might think. Apparently what Xander said about the Slayer dreams being different around here got Buffy thinking, and she sicced some of the stodgier researchers on local geo-magical influences. It turns out - and I so can't believe I didn't look for this on my own - that there's a giant magical hotspot pretty near here, under Bela Vista."

"I've been there," Xander mulled, tapping his finger against his chin. He held up a hand to forestall the information session and left the room, returning in short order with a battered paperback atlas. He opened it to a large map of Bengo province and pointed out the city. "Seemed pretty normal. What's a magical hotspot?"

"Like a hellmouth, except it draws in magic instead of big bads."

"So what's this got to do with our out-of-state visitors?" Angel asked. "And what do they have to do with me?"

"Nothing to do with you directly. Us being here is happenstance. But we're here because Xander's here, and Xander's here because the Slayers are here, and the Slayers are here because the hotspot influences the magic that creates and binds them."

"What's that? His most magnificent Ponciness is not the center of the universe? Dear god!" Spike grasped at his chest in feigned shock, reducing Xander and Willow to giggles.

"Shut it, Spike," Angel growled. Spike just flipped him off and settled back against the wall behind Willow.

"Anyway," Willow emphasized, "Giles got in touch with the Devon Coven's seers and they gave him the heads up. Turns out that the Uvumi that had been sold to fight in the gladiator games or whatever were sold to..." She flipped the page she was looking at sideways, squinting as she tried to make out her writing. "Somebody. Whoever they were, they were subsidiary to the Wolf, Ram and Hart, and were all set up to come out of the portal when I closed it."

"Were they caught in the magical fall-out of your actions?" Illyria asked, also trying to decipher the cryptic notes.

"No, actually. Apparently, a bunch of the different kinds of demons that the Senior Partners were trying to sic on us are kinda renowned for feuding, so they were all being held in different pocket dimensions. There was a gatekeeper or," again she flipped through her notes, until she found a page that was mostly covered with a rough diagram of a ritual. "Here! Buffy described it to me, but she said she was getting some grunt to scan everything into an online archive for me, so I should be able to get a cleaner copy later. But anyway. These," she pointed out the five points of the star, "were where the wardens sat. The way the ritual works, four normal magic-users sit at the bottom points, and someone who's trained in opening portals sits at the top. The others' power gets funneled through him, and he can use all of them to control the portals."

"So what happened, then?" Xander asked, running his fingers over the symbols Willow had sketched at the edges of the pentacle.

"When I shut the portal, it knocked the four back-ups out. Because he wasn't actually using his own juice, though, whoever was in charge apparently stayed conscious. By the time the Senior Partners managed to find someone else to open up the dimension they were in, he'd gotten away. And it looks like he took an army with him."

"And suddenly I'm depressed," Spike muttered.

"So what you're saying is that, for some reason, this guy is bringing his army here? To take advantage of this magic hotspot or whatever?" Willow nodded at Angel, who shuddered. "Didn't we just do our apocalypse for the year?" He whined.

"Then those we fought in the caves were scouts for this army?" Illyria asked. She marked Bela Vista on the map with one finger, and sought out the town where Xander lived with another. He pointed out the location, and she followed the terrain markers until she found the location of the caves where they had fought the Uvumi.

"Bela Vista is too far away for this to be a practical vantage point," she remarked. "But since we only fought three, I think it would be safe to assume that more are similarly secreted elsewhere."

"It may be too far away far away for a scouting party," Xander mused, "but not for a standard perimeter. Wils, you get any numbers on that army?"

"Mm." She flipped over the page she was looking at. "I'm getting sixty Uvumi, forty Anansen, and, um... fifty Oni."

"And for those of us lacking a clue?"

"Hundred and fifty bad guys." She looked at him curiously.

"I can do the math, brainiac. What are the Nancies and the Knees like?"

Spike snorted, and Willow rolled her eyes. "The Anansen are from West Africa, so they're probably in your books. Buffy said they're some kind of spider demon. And the Oni are giant Japanese trolls."

"I'm guessin' they're not gonna be big on the idea of sitting down together and staging a nice moon-viewing party?" Spike asked.

"We're kinda short on soybeans and monkeys, so I'm guessing no."

"Huh-wha?" Xander did a double-take from where he was bringing in one of the larger demonologies he had stored in the living room.

"Oni are supposed to be scared away by soybeans and monkeys. And no, I don't know why." Willow shook her head. "Got anything?"

"Yeah. The index. Gimme a minute, will you?" Xander huffed, flipping through the weathered book.

Illyria and Angel turned their attention back to the map, while Willow started transcribing her notes into a more accessible format. After a few minutes, Xander left and brought in a second book. He flipped to the appropriate page and scanned quickly before standing and thumping it with his finger.

"Got it!" He crowed.

"What's the deal, then?" Spike sidled around to peer past Xander's shoulder.

"Big ugly spiders of evil, yadda yadda, arboreal?"

"Tree-dwelling," Willow clarified.

"Yeah. And they've got big nasty limb-grabbing claws."

"So how do we kill the buggers?"

"Looks like fire or beheading are the best bet; anything else, they take a lot of damage to put down."

He was sliding the book over the table to Willow when Illyria poked him in the shoulder. It was the first time she had instigated a conversation with him, and he jumped at the contact.

"Y'know, you wanna get my attention, I've got a name," he grumbled.

"I am unclear as to its nature. None of the others address you in a singular fashion."

Xander rocked on his heels for a minute, then grinned. "Fair enough. Just call me Xander, okay?"

"Okay." She seemed hesitant about using the term, but smiled slightly in response.

"So what inspired the pokage, then?"

"You spoke earlier about the possible dispatch of troops in the use of determining a perimeter."

Xander eyed her for a moment, and responded slowly. "Yes, I suppose I did."

"One hundred and fifty soldiers, split into groups of three, could easily establish a defensible perimeter around the target area with an approximate radius comparable to the distance between Bela Vista and the cave."

Xander turned his attention back to the map for a moment before getting back up to leave the room. He returned a minute later with a small metal toolbox. "Gotta love that carpentry gig," he chuckled, digging through it and coming up with a compass and a protractor.

"Look at you with the tools," Willow giggled. He doffed an imaginary cap at her before inscribing the circle Illyria had indicated on the map.

"So we're guessing that our bad guys are sitting pretty somewhere along this line."

"Equidistant?" Illyria asked.

"Easy enough to check," he answered, handing the protractor over to Willow. "You're math girl, you get to mark the posts. Give me fifty points spread out around the circle."

"I knew that not graduating from college was going to leave me with the crap jobs," Willow griped, but started jotting calculations on the edge of her paper.


End file.
